Stay
by lacemonster
Summary: [Age-Swap AU; Damian is Batman, Dick is Robin]Damian returns to Gotham for the first time in five years to take the cowl from his injured father. However, Bruce is unwilling to give up the cowl-and their past-as easily as Damian hoped. Then there's the matter of Dick Grayson, his father's recently added ward, who insists on wanting to fight crime. [DickDami, warnings inside]
1. Part 1

**Warnings** : Underage sexual content; dubcon; explicit sexual content; age difference; underage relationship; violence; taboo; murder; angst

 **Pairings** : Dick Grayson/Damian Wayne

 **Credits** : This is non-profit, fanmade work. All characters are owned by DC. The fanfiction was created by me, please do not repost without my permission.

 **A/N** : This is an Age-Swap AU. Specifically, I swapped Dick and Damian's ages, and made a story where Damian is Batman and Dick is Robin.

This story is meant to be a read as a one-shot. However, due to the ridiculous length (my document is about eighty pages), I split it up into two separate parts. However, it's still meant to be read as a one-shot, and there is nothing differentiating between Part 1 and Part 2-they are the same, single storyline, and are meant to be read back-to-back/continuously.

I originally wrote this as a prompt and I was surprised by how much fun I had with it. Swapping Dick and Damian's ages lends to a lot of changes in the DC Universe.

For instance, there's Robin. Robin is Dick's creation. So when you switch Dick and Damian's ages, you... are essentially creating a world in which Damian was never Robin. A sidekick, maybe, but not Robin. For that matter, if Damian was Bruce's sidekick, was there ever a need for a Jason or a Tim? Probably not. So that eliminates those characters, which by extension, eliminates a lot of the Batfamily!

That thought alone is so depressing to me!

Then there is Bruce, a man who never raised a child until Damian was dumped into his lap. This was another interesting thing to consider. Imagine Bruce raising Damian without having any of his experiences with raising Dick or the other boys. Imagine having your first child be Damian, back when he was a bratty, spoiled kid, who is a complete stranger and fully-thinking child when you first meet him, and you don't know a damned thing about kids.

Thus, that creates this broken family dynamic.

Then, on top of that, you have Damian who grew up without Dick's footsteps to follow. No one who understands what it's like to be a kid and a crimefighter. No one who understands what it's like to be raised by Bruce. No one who is willing to be your friend and play games with you and teach you wrong from right.

So this prompt really surprised me with how deeply complex it is! I am convinced that I will go back to this AU at some point. The best part of this prompt was that it really pushed me to see what was the foundation of Dick and Damian's relationship-to decide what made the relationship tick.

As a forewarning, this story has underage content. I took the age swap pretty literally. While I never specify Dick's age, expect him to be in his very early teens. I explicitly refer to him as a minor, a child, etc., in this story.

There is also some serious violence, including mentions of past murder/assassinations, but nothing that seems so far off from canon-typical violence. Also, lots of family arguing, and an incident of accidental violence.

I originally posted this to AO3 in October 2016. Even now, this fic still means a lot to me. It's one of my favorites and I hope you enjoy.

* * *

Damian readjusted the bag on his shoulder. He stared up at the large manor—the shapes of the hedges were different and the vines were a tad overgrown, but aside from that, it hadn't changed much. He turned his head, wondering if this was the right course of action. Perhaps he was opening the potential to make things worse just by showing up. But after the rumors he had heard, he just couldn't bring himself to stay away.

He rang the doorbell before he could think too much and talk himself out of it. He already travelled all the way there, he decided he'd rather deal with the consequences later. He waited, anxiously, until his hearing picked up some movement coming from inside of the house.

The door swung open. Damian's gaze lifted. Pennyworth's eyes widened in surprise, the duster in his hand falling to the floor.

"Master Damian," he said, shocked. He swallowed. "Welcome home."

That was the only confirmation Damian needed. He invited himself in, scooting past Alfred. He looked around once, his brow furrowed in deep concentration, his expression stony. The manor was so familiar it seemed untouched… with the exception of the chandelier, which seemed to have been replaced.

"Master Damian, I…" Alfred started but he stopped. Damian looked back at him. There was a deep semblance of emotion in his eyes—too much so, that Damian had to tear his gaze away. He felt his chest tighten. Pennyworth continued, "The manor. It's a mess. You'll have to forgive me. I... wasn't sure when you were coming back."

He says _when_. But Damian can hear it in his voice—he was wondering _if_.

"Let me take your bag," Alfred said, holding out his hand. The strap slipped from Damian's shoulder. He handed over the bag. He moved over to the coatrack, shrugging off his jacket—when he moved to hang it up, he noticed something odd.

Another coat, one that was too small.

He didn't comment on it. He hung up his jacket without pause.

"The place looks fine, Alfred. The same as I remember it," he finally said. He looked back at Alfred, who smiled—whether at the rare praise, or because Damian had finally said _something_ , Damian wasn't sure—but a moment of thought seemed to cross the butler's mind, and his face slowly fell.

"A lot has changed, Master Damian," he said slowly. "It's been five years, after all." He added, voice low, "And four months."

Damian wondered what he meant. Alfred quickly changed the subject.

"I should probably get you something to drink—and inform Master Bruce, yes." Alfred looked up at him, "You will be staying, won't you?" Quickly, he clarified, "For dinner, that is."

Damian wasn't sure. But he said anyways, "Yes. I'll stay for dinner."

"Very good," Pennyworth said at once, eyes crinkling as he smiled.

"You can skip the drink though," Damian said quickly. "I'll speak to my father now."

"Right," Alfred said, his voice a touch quieter, looking more solemn. "Wait in the parlor. I'll go fetch him."

* * *

Damian was left waiting in the parlor for at least fifteen minutes. His eyes had been fixated on the clock. He watched it tick. He thought of all the time that had passed. He wondered about beyond the clock, where the bats hid. Most of all he thought of the code to get to it all—the hour and minute of his grandparents' deaths, and he wondered if his father had to change the password after Damian had left.

The door finally opened. Damian turned his head toward the entryway.

They stared at each other for a moment, silence between them. Following was the creak of a door until it shut with a noise. Finally, slow footsteps as his father crossed the room. Damian got on his feet and even though Bruce was motionless, Damian could tell. Could tell that Bruce was observing, seeing how he had changed over the years.

"How long are you staying?" Bruce finally asked, voice low. Straight to the point.

"I told Pennyworth I'd stay for dinner."

Bruce looked at him. Damian couldn't read the expression in his eyes. Couldn't tell if they were sad or indifferent, proud or uncertain. But it wasn't completely icy—there was some type of emotion there, however deep, but Damian couldn't put a finger on it.

"Why are you here?" Bruce finally asked, voice quiet.

At that, Damian felt his defenses come back up.

"What else?" he said. His eyes narrowed. "I came for what's mine."

At that, Bruce scoffed. He shook his head to himself, his usual scowl returning. Even that frown hadn't changed much—although the man's eyes seemed a touch wearier. Damian began to also notice the gray in his hair. Bruce shoved his hands in his pockets, gave Damian a challenging look. "We're not even going to make it to dinner, are we?"

Damian's eyes continued to glare at him. He bristled at the comment but he continued, "I heard a rumor while I was gone—that Gotham's Dark Knight had disappeared. That there was an accident, that he was dead, that he had left. I had to come see it for myself. Your posture isn't the same as it was. You also look out of shape. So what was it, your back?"

Bruce stared him down for a moment. Then he reached down, pulling up his pant leg, revealing the prosthetic. Damian turned his head, ignoring the sinking feeling that washed over him.

"It needs some improvements," Bruce said, letting go. The prosthetic was once again hidden. "And the batsuit will have to be changed as well—I plan on doing a whole new transformation as soon as I recover."

" _Or_ you can give me what you promised," Damian said, eyes flickering in Bruce's direction. Bruce took a deep breath, the exhale sounding frustrated.

"It's not _yours_ ," Bruce said. Looking disgusted, he said, "Do you think I've forgotten what you did?"

Damian's anger began to bubble up. "Look at yourself, you _stubborn old man_. It doesn't matter if your leg is busted or not, you _can't fight_. I'm not asking for your affection or even your respect. Just _give it up_."

"You haven't earned it!" Bruce said, voice rising. "You _abandoned_ this city. You abandoned your duties and responsibilities, and now you show your face for the first time in over five years, and just expect me to _hand_ _you_ the cowl? After leaving without a word? After stealing my money and playing hide and seek around the globe—"

"Just take it out of my inheritance," Damian said, hissing.

"I was _furious_ when you left—but I hoped that _maybe_ , somewhere in your time gone, you'd learn to shed that _arrogance_ of yours—"

" _Tt_. My arrogance," Damian repeated bitterly. He gritted his teeth at the perceived hypocrisy. " _My_ arrogance?"

"Yes. _Your_ arrogance. How dare you—"

They were interrupted when the door swung open. Damian expected Alfred to be standing there, ready to intervene as always, but did a double-take when he realized it wasn't the butler at all. Instead there was a boy with black hair and blue eyes—who must have realized he had walked in at the wrong time, considering the look on his face.

Damian thought briefly of the jacket on the coatrack.

"Who the hell are _you_?" Damian said, glaring.

The boy blinked, eyes flickering back and forth between Bruce and Damian. He shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry. Did I interrupt something?" He sunk in place. "I forgot to knock again, didn't I?"

Damian turned to his father, gaze demanding answers. Bruce rubbed his forehead for a moment, looking stressed. He finally sighed and beckoned the boy forward. Damian's angry look hadn't worn down the slightest, and so the kid looked at him cautiously, but he still entered the room and came forward.

Bruce gestured between them. "Dick, this is my son, Damian. Damian, this is my ward, Dick Grayson."

"Your _what_?" Damian breathed.

His mind reeled at this news. His shock did not go unnoticed.

"Um, hi," Dick said with an awkward half-smile.

Damian stared back at him flatly. He couldn't think straight. He wasn't even sure if he could _see_ straight.

"This is ridiculous. You replaced me. I was gone and you _replaced_ me. Your _son_."

"Replaced?" Dick repeated quietly. Bruce, on the other hand, immediately interceded.

"That's _enough_ ," Bruce said. Damian recognized the tone all too well—ushering in memories of his childhood, particularly the more rebellious years. The anger began to swell back up. "This is between you and me. You don't have to take it out on everyone else." Damian opened his mouth to argue but Bruce turned to Dick, "What do you need?"

"I just came to say that dinner's ready," Dick said, shrugging.

"We'll be right there," Bruce said.

"Alright," Dick said. He glanced up once more at Damian before retreating.

A million thoughts, a million words, were racing through Damian's mind. He didn't know what to start with. The minute he was gone, he looked back at his father, whose face had reverted to its ever-solemn expression.

"Does he _know_?" Damian demanded first.

"Yes, he knows," Bruce said.

"Why do you have some child running around your house with all of your _secrets_?"

Bruce looked at him sharply.

"I trusted _you_ , didn't I? And you weren't exactly the easiest kid to get along with." Bruce stopped himself, shaking his head. "Look, it's a long story. If we can make it through a civil dinner, I'll tell you the rest. If you can't behave for me, at least do it for Alfred. We're both guilty of putting him through hell. Let's not drag him through it for another night."

Bruce headed out the door first. Damian watched him go, eyeing his steps. He thought about Bruce's words. He wondered what Bruce had meant about trusting him. Damian had always assumed that Bruce trusted him because they were father and son. But in the end, Damian still wasn't sure if Bruce trusted him at all.

The hardest part was that Damian wasn't sure if he could blame him.

They sat at the long, dining table. Damian sat a couple seats down, isolating himself from the rest of them—which earned him a reproachful look from Bruce, but the man said nothing about it. After setting the table, Pennyworth sat near the center of the two—ever the mediator.

Then came a long, awkward silence, filled only by the sounds of silverware clinking against plates.

Finally, Alfred cleared his throat. He turned to Dick, who was sitting right next to Bruce, creating their own little island at the table while Alfred and Damian seemed to just be drifting away.

"How was school, Master Dick?"

"It was okay," Dick said, shrugging.

More silence.

"What did you learn?"

"Stuff."

More silence.

"We read _Hamlet_ ," Dick said, but by the look on his face, he didn't appear to really want to talk about it—he just seemed like he wanted to fill the silence. Pennyworth latched onto the opportunity.

" _Conscience doth make cowards of us all_ ," Alfred quoted. He flashed a smile, even though the rest of the table felt as cold as a crypt. He added, "I actually played Hamlet once, ages ago. I was originally an understudy—but the actor had gotten drunk at the pub the night before and was still hungover the next day." Alfred chuckled a little at the memory before asking, "So what did you think of it?"

"Eh," Dick said, shrugging. Pennyworth looked aghast.

" _Eh_? That's all?"

"It didn't really make a lot of sense," Dick said, frowning. "Hamlet didn't even know if Claudius killed the King. He was basing all of his judgment on a _ghost_ he thought he saw."

Pennyworth looked bewildered. "Well, not necessarily. Hamlet tested it. That was the purpose of _The Mousetrap_ and Claudius confessed in the end."

"Yeah, but he still wasn't _there_. And he killed a bunch of innocent people over it."

"That was the purpose—it was supposed to be documenting his maddening revenge."

"But it didn't start out that way—in the beginning, he just wanted to become the king. He could have done that any other way—none of which involved killing people. I'm sure people would have rallied behind him, considering he was the prince. And Claudius felt guilty, maybe he would have confessed or given up the throne. Or if Hamlet _really_ wanted to kill him, couldn't he have chosen something more discrete? He already poisoned Ophelia's brother. He should have just stuck some poison in the king's drink and spared everyone else."

"It was Laertes who poisoned the blade first. And Claudius ended up poisoning himself in the end."

"Still," Dick said, shrugging. "He could have just gotten over it. Claudius was old anyways. He would have died eventually."

Alfred opened his mouth to argue but then closed it, considering. He rubbed his chin. "Actually, I suppose he could have. But then, I suppose, there wouldn't be a story to tell."

Damian realized he had been staring down at his meal. He had barely eaten. He was growing increasingly irritated and impatient. He didn't even give a shit about his father's story anymore—he hadn't come to discover what had happened when he _wasn't there_ , he just wanted the damn cowl. But instead he had to sit and wait while they all played dinner charades, pretending that everything was normal.

Nothing about this was normal.

Damian glanced up. He caught the kid looking at him but he just as quickly looked away, focused on eating.

Damian shook his head to himself. Enough was enough. He dropped his fork on the plate, creating a loud clatter that drew everyone's attention.

"Are we _seriously_ not going to talk about this?" he demanded, turning his head toward the head of the table.

Bruce's mouth was clenched shut, a stern look on his face. He continued to cut into his meal, ignoring Damian. After a long moment of silence, he finally answered.

"I asked you for one meal," he said, looking up at him with a stony gaze. He shook his head once. "And you can't even give me that."

"Give me the cowl and I'll be out of your hands forever. You'll never have to worry about me interrupting your dinner again."

"That's not how it works," Bruce said. There was a hint of a snarl to the end of his words. His well-crafted composure had been tested and prodded all night. Damian didn't care that he was getting under his father's skin—maybe, this way, he'd be honest for once.

"What do I have to do, _fight_ you for it?" Damian snapped.

"It's _never_ going to be yours," Bruce said coldly. He breathed in deeply. "I don't care if I'm missing every limb, or if I have a hundred knives in me, or if I'm riddled with bullets, or if I'm on my goddamned deathbed. I will _never_ give it to you. I didn't work my whole life just to hand over my legacy to some spoiled, selfish, arrogant manchild—"

"Better that than some hopeless, stubborn, old _moron_!" Damian shot back.

"I never should have trained you—"

"But you _did_ and _you're stuck with me_! In case you've forgotten, you're lonely and miserable, and unless you're planning on having your butler and some child throw on a bat costume, _you're out of options_!"

"I am the _only_ option!" Bruce said, slamming his fist on the table with such force that the plates clattered. Alfred and Dick flinched. "You made that clear when you left! You can't be trusted!"

"And you can't fight! You promised me this already! To _me_ , your legacy to your _son_ —"

" _Then you're not my son_!" Bruce erupted. He cursed under his breath, set down his utensils with a loud clatter, scooting back his chair with an ugly scraping sound against the hardwood floor. He tossed the cloth napkin onto the table.

Damian stayed in place, motionless, as Bruce headed toward the door. Damian listened to the uneven footsteps on the wooden floors, forced to walk in his direction in order to exit.

"Leave. Stay. I don't care. Do whatever you like," he muttered as he passed him.

The footsteps faded away. There was a thick tension in the air. Damian could feel his heart hammering inside his chest, the adrenaline from the argument still racing through him. Mixed, bitter emotions washed over him. So many words he wished he had said. So many words he wished he could take back.

"Master Damian?" Alfred said, his voice small in the vast, quiet dining room.

Damian didn't say anything. He scooted the chair back and made his exit as well.

He found his bags and started to head for the coatrack—but he caught a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye. Damian moved towards it, following the small shape into the parlor. He moved around the sofa, spotting the black and white cat sitting on the rug, cleaning his fur.

"Alfred," Damian said. The cat stopped and looked at him. He looked just as Damian remembered—though some of the black had turned to gray. The cat watched him with narrowed eyes as he drew in closer.

Damian knelt before him, reached out to pet him, but the cat suddenly hissed.

Damian halted, the reaction new. Alfred used to hiss at everyone except him.

"What, you're angry at me too?" Damian said, his voice lowering. He reached to pet him anyways but the cat simply chomped on his hand. Damian let him—and the cat glared up at him, his face smushed as he tried to get his teeth around Damian's hand, but eventually he resigned when Damian didn't so much as flinch. Alfred let go and began to flit off in another direction.

Damian watched him go. The cat came to a pause, looking up to greet someone who had stepped in. Damian tensed at the sight of the unexpected guest—it was his father's ward. Dick bent down to pet the cat, who bristled but otherwise accepted it. Damian glowered, feeling jealous.

Dick caught him looking. He glanced back down, looking a little hesitant, before speaking.

"So you're really him," he said. Damian glanced at him questioningly. Dick shrugged a little. "They talked about you. Even showed me videos of your training and some of the missions you've been on. But still, it's weird actually seeing you and knowing that you're real."

"What all did they tell you?" Damian said, making sure his tone was indifferent. The kid was cautious around him—it was apparent in the way he acted so friendly with everyone else except Damian. He was afraid of him, maybe. Perhaps, Damian thought, he should be.

But if he was afraid, it was enough to keep him at a distance but not enough to send him running. Dick responded, frowning a little, saying, "Everything."

Damian left him there and continued with what he was doing. As he went to get his jacket, he turned and found Pennyworth standing before the front doors, as if blocking it. The butler looked at him with a weary expression.

"Don't go," he said.

Damian wanted to say something scalding, anything mean enough to get Pennyworth out of the way. Anything mean enough to make him never look at Damian like that again. But past Pennyworth, he saw the doors. He saw the walls with the portraits hanging on them. The floors, the furniture, the lights.

How little it had changed.

How much it still seemed like home.

Damian clenched his jaw, biting back any words he might have said. And he shouldered his way past Pennyworth, towards the door. But when his hand landed on the doorknob, he was stopped.

"Damian. Wait."

Damian paused, his hand still on the doorknob. He let out the breath he hadn't realized he had been holding in. He turned around to face his father.

Bruce stood there, hands stuffed in his pockets. He tilted his head back in the direction of the parlor. "Follow me."

* * *

Damian didn't understand what he was looking at.

On the computer monitors, video footage was being played. It showed the training room in the Cave. Damian's eyes followed the figure on the screen, watching scenes of familiar obstacle courses and tool practice. Scenes that closely resembled the early days of training with his father—back when he was just a boy and had just started living in the manor.

But it wasn't him in those videos.

"He was part of a family act called the _Flying Graysons_. His parents were trapeze artists—some of the greatest in the world—and he learned what they knew, becoming an acrobatic prodigy."

Damian's eyes watched the videos closely. The figure didn't just run through the obstacles—he jumped, flipped, spun, with alarming speed and accuracy.

"They were performing in Gotham for Haly's Circus. His parents were on the trapeze when the ropes suddenly snapped. They fell to their deaths. Dick was there, on the scene, and watched them fall."

There weren't just videos. Damian looked at the newspaper clippings, the headlines, the autopsy reports.

"I was there when it happened. When I found out that he had nowhere to go, I took him in. When I found out he had no living kin, I became his guardian."

"And when did _this_ happen?" Damian asked. His eyes were fixated on the videos of his father instructing Dick, showing him how to use the grappling hook. How to throw batarangs. How to shoot a tranquilizer gun. How to fight.

"He discovered the Cave. I had to explain my secret. I wasn't keen on training him, in the beginning. But he was serious about it. He had the right heart for it, had the capability and the drive, so I trained him." Bruce slowly shook his head to himself. "You two are different. Vastly different. But when I first met you, I didn't think it was possible for any kid to do what you could do."

Damian watched the videos. Their styles were completely different—but how Dick performed did work in his own way. He wasn't perfect, there were parts that Damian definitely did better at his age, but his potential was undeniable.

"Why are you showing me this?" Damian finally asked, turning his head. Bruce considered him for a moment before shutting off the computers. He turned and walked deeper into the Cave.

Damian got up to follow, trailing behind his father as he slowly walked to another part of the Cave where all of the equipment was stored. Bruce pressed the button that revealed the display cases. Damian looked closely, was surprised to see that his old black and white uniform was still on display—next to all of his father's Batman suits. But it was the one he did not recognize that made him pause.

He stared at the red vest.

"It was his own design. He called it Robin."

Damian had never chosen a pseudonym for himself. He was just an apprentice who worked in the shadows. The name, combined with the bright colors of the uniform, seemed painfully flamboyant. Bruce must have noticed Damian's confusion.

"As I said, you two are different. While you and I were much of the same, having learned the teachings of Ra's al Ghul, Dick is a cut from a different cloth. He doesn't excel in stealth the way you and I do—his way of accomplishing tasks plays on his skills as an acrobat, which is too showy. But it could work—if we used that to our advantage. The strategy was to make him as distracting as possible. He's quick, fast, and can bait enemies easily and get away with it."

"That seems horribly risky," Damian said.

"Possibly. Unfortunately, we never got to find out. Our first mission is the same one where I lost my leg. Obviously, we haven't been back out since."

"I still don't understand," Damian said. "Are you telling me that he is your successor?"

"No," Bruce said. "I'm telling you that you're going to train him."

Damian deadpanned. "You're joking."

"I never do."

Damian knew his father was serious but he was still in disbelief. He looked back at the Robin uniform, displayed at the side of his father's most recent Batman uniform.

"You'll have to give me a week," Bruce said. "Putting together your uniform will take some time, time I wasn't expecting to spend."

Damian didn't see much of a choice. This was his chance to get on his father's good side.

" _Tt_. Fine. But I'm overseeing the design. It's not going to be red and green, I can tell you that much."

"Of course not," Bruce said. "The Batman suit needs to be black."

Damian stopped, his mind registering his father's words. He turned to look at him. But even with one leg, Bruce had managed to sneak away. He was already heading toward the staircase.

* * *

"Bruce."

Damian paused in the middle of wrapping up his hands, long enough to glance over his shoulder. His father was fixated on the computer. Dick had just joined him at his side, dressed in simple training gear.

"Is this going to be one of the same obstacle courses that you and I did?" Dick asked.

"No. I put together something entirely different," Bruce said, eyes still locked on the computer.

Dick frowned a little. "It's not going to have water, is it?"

Bruce made a small noise, sounding almost amused. "Why, are you telling me that you think you'll fall in again?"

"That's not the problem," Dick said, frowning a little at the apparent memory. "It's cold in the Cave." He smirked a little, adding, "Besides, I only fell because you were standing in the way. I totally could have made that jump."

"Right."

"At least I fell and didn't trip on my cape," Dick said, looking at Bruce with a bit of a smug look.

"Brat," Bruce said. But he looked away from the monitor, just long enough to reach over and muss Dick's hair. The action betrayed a sort of affection and warmth that Damian was unfamiliar with. Damian instantly looked away, a dull feeling in his chest.

Dick ran off to bother Pennyworth. Damian watched him go before returning to his father's side.

In a low voice, Damian said, "I thought you wanted _me_ to train him. So why are we both running _your_ obstacle course?"

"You will train him—once you're out in the field. But here, in the Cave, leave that to me. You've been gone for awhile and Dick's training has been on hiatus since my injury. While we're waiting on your equipment, it won't hurt to do some assessments," Bruce said.

Damian felt annoyed that he had to—possibly in a literal sense, depending on what his father had planned—jump through hoops. In his time gone, he hadn't been vacationing. He had travelled around the world, exploring different terrains, moving from school to school to hone his skills at many of the same places his father and grandfather had studied.

Of course, Bruce had not been there for that, but a simple look at Damian should have been enough. He wasn't fresh out of his teenaged years anymore. He was fit and hardened, had even bulked up in his time gone.

Alfred had even done a physical assessment, drawing blood and measuring him. "You grew an inch," he had said, surprised, when he measured his height.

If Damian was honest with himself, the greatest reason why he was annoyed was because he still wasn't on-board with the idea of having a sidekick. He disliked people, especially strangers and children. Dick fit that category a little too well. While the videotapes were impressive, Damian felt the aid of a partner was completely unnecessary. More than that, it felt like a hindrance.

"Alright," Bruce said, finally backing away from the computer. He walked to the edge of the platform. Damian joined him. A railing prevented them from falling over the precipice. Damian peeked over the edge, catching a glimpse of the flowing water leading down into the depths. Damian had been down to the cave floor before, it was an especially dark and murky place. He caught moving shadows in the crevices—bats that had strayed too far from the ceiling.

Suddenly, a light appeared in the darkness. Followed by another, then another, creating a trail of lights descending further and further down the cave.

"Dick, come over here," Bruce called out. Dick left Alfred behind, quickly hurrying to join by their side. He looked at the lights.

"Our course is down _there_?" Dick asked, seeming skeptical. Damian rolled his eyes, annoyed.

"What, are you afraid of bats?"

"No," Dick said, sounding a little defensive. "Bats are cute. They eat mangoes."

"That would be fruit bats. These are brown bats. They eat insects."

"They're still bats," Dick mumbled, resting his chin on the railing. Damian looked at his father hopelessly—but his father just gave him a disapproving look. He wasn't going to get involved in the little spat.

"The lights will guide you through your course. Each one you touch will change its color," Bruce continued, not bothering to comment. "The objective is to simply follow through the course, changing each light's color, and to complete the course as efficiently as possible without the use of tools."

Damian's eyes were already scanning the course. It didn't seem particularly difficult. He was already mapping ways to get to some of the harder to reach lights.

Suddenly Damian felt his wrist being pulled. Before he could react to his father's actions, the cuff was tightened around his wrist. Damian's eyes quickly travelled up the chain leading to Dick's wrist, finding the cuff's twin. Damian's gaze flickered up, meeting Dick's at the exact same time. They both looked at Bruce.

"Really?" Dick asked first, making a face.

"You have to complete the course together," Bruce said. "No trying to break through it. I'll make you do it again if I see it's been tampered with." He backed away. "I'll observe you through the cameras for safe-keeping. Good luck."

 _Safe-keeping_. Damian supposed that was code word for _don't bother trying to cheat_. Damian could barely contain his anger. He already felt stuck with the kid—and then his father had to make it literal. If he was on his own, this course would already be halfway finished before his father could blink, but there was no helping it now.

"Come on," Damian said, with a bit of a growl, charging forward. Dick was dragged with, perhaps too roughly by the way Damian caught Alfred looking at him crossly as they passed by.

Damian hurried down the path that led toward the cave floor. The first few lights were simply attached to the cave walls. When Damian pressed on it, it changed from a yellow illuminance to a blue one. He followed the trail, punching each light, until he was stopped by something blocking his path.

It was a natural wall. At the very top was a yellow light.

Damian felt his cuff being tugged. He glanced down at Dick, who was frowning at the chain. He seemed to be testing its length—it wasn't long, probably no longer than two or three feet.

"If it was longer, I could jump up," Dick said, frowning a little.

Hell, if Damian was by himself, he could probably just climb over without breaking a sweat. He glanced down at Dick. He was a little tall for his age and extremely lightweight. It was pretty obvious what his father wanted them to do.

"You have to climb up on me," Damian said. Dick eyed him skeptically.

"Are you going to drop me?"

"Why the hell would I drop you? We're _tied together_ ," Damian said, exasperated. At that, Dick raised an eyebrow.

"So if we _weren't_ tied together, you _would_ drop me."

Damian couldn't believe this. "Could this not be anymore obvious? He clearly wants you to—"

"Of course I know. It was just a joke," Dick cut in. Damian stared at him. "You got to bend down first, though. You're too tall. I can't climb on top of you with these handcuffs on."

Damian reeled his irritation back in. He kneeled, putting his hands together. Dick stepped on and Damian hoisted him up. It was a little awkward because Dick couldn't stand up all the way due to the cuffs, and Damian clenched his jaw when he got a knee to the face, but he heard the distant click as Dick stretched his arm and got the light. Damian quickly put him back down, rubbing his face.

"Sorry," Dick said. Damian ignored him.

They followed down the path where it branched out. There was a light coming from a narrow crevice.

"Go," Damian said when Dick looked at it, hesitating.

"But you can't go in there," Dick said, measuring out the crevice. "We're supposed to stick together. There's got to be another way."

Damian was at the end of his patience. "Do you ever shut up and listen?"

"I don't know. Do you ever _smile_?"

"There is no other way around this—"Damian started but Dick cut him off.

"What about that?" Dick said, pointing. There was a ledge that paralleled the path that they were on. The only problem was that it needed to be jumped across. It wasn't a far jump, but if they failed, it'd send them both tumbling down ten feet with no grappling gun to swing them up. And while Dick proved himself a good jumper in the videos, Damian hadn't seen it in person, and he wasn't sure if he trusted Dick to make the jump.

"No. Definitely not. Just go in, press the button, and come back out."

Dick didn't say anything for once. Damian could tell by the look on his face that he still thought it was a bad idea—but he kept his mouth shut and scooted in between the walls. Damian listened to his footsteps as he went deeper in—was even pulled forward at one point by the chain, his arm dragged into the crevice. It was taking awhile.

"Are you close?" Damian called in. He wasn't sure how much further he could stretch his arm.

"It's really bright. I can't see that well," Dick called back. Damian looked into the crevice—with the narrow tunnel funneling out the light, it really was bright. Bright to the point where Damian was straining to keep his eyes open. He felt a sudden jerk on the chain, so sudden that Damian felt an ache in his shoulder as a result, followed by a noise.

"What are you doing in there?" Damian said, annoyed.

"I didn't see the rock!" Dick said, sounding equally annoyed. But the light changed color, blue striking Damian in the face. He heard Dick heading back, felt the pull of the chain relax as he got close. Dick finally emerged, not looking pleased in the slightest. He had one hand over the other and it didn't take long for Damian to realize he was bleeding.

Damian wondered if this could be any more disastrous. Their whole trip had been clumsy and disorienting, not to mention painfully long, and now they had an injury. He was already embarrassed thinking about his father watching them struggle to get through this. They should have been finished already. Still, he sighed a little and said, "Let me see."

Dick reluctantly showed him. It was a large scrape on his palm but nothing too deep. The blood rose to the surface in little beads, red smeared onto the rest of his hand along with the dirt from touching the cave wall.

"It's not deep. You shouldn't use your hand to catch yourself," Damian said.

"I know. But I don't usually fall," Dick said, sounding a little defensive. Damian didn't press the matter.

He led the rest of the way down, though was a little more conscientious. He didn't move too quickly, giving Dick space and time to help stop the bleeding. They followed the rest of the path, pulling other stunts, but were eventually stopped by the flow of water.

The batcave had a stream of water that flowed through like a waterfall, eventually leading back out into the bay. The spray from the waterfall hit Damian's skin, in the already humid and moist air. Damian eyed the light across the way. The last one. The current in this part of the cave was especially strong and loud—and Damian wasn't too sure about how easy it'd be to swim with Dick hitched to his arm. Going around wasn't an option—even if they moved to lower ground and crossed in the quieter part of the stream, they wouldn't be able to easily climb back up to get that button. He looked around, finding a path of rocks that should be able to get them across.

Damian's earlier fear of jumping with Dick was apparently coming back to haunt him. The rocks were going to have to be jumped.

"We'll have to go from there to there," Damian said, pointing. Dick nodded in understanding. They got to the edge of the current, the waters roaring and splashing up. "I'll count to three. One—"

"Wait, is it going to be one-two-three-go or one-two-go?" Dick cut in.

"One, two, and then go," Damian said quickly. "One, two, three."

Damian leapt but Dick was just a second behind. He stumbled at the edge, nearly tripping into Damian but he held out his hand in time to prevent crashing. Damian's patience broke.

"What are you doing?" Damian said, looking down at Dick and glaring. He shrugged Dick's hand off of him.

Dick just looked weary. "I thought you were doing one-two-go, not one-two-three. The three confused me. I hesitated."

"Yes, you did hesitate," Damian said, annoyed. It was hard to talk over the sound of rushing water. The spray against the rock was hitting them. Dick shook his head to himself. He looked like he was nearing the end of his rope too.

"I know what I'm doing," he said, insistent. He frowned. "I normally do better than this."

"You're going to _have_ to be better than this. Your incompetence is holding us back."

"My _incompetence_?" Dick repeated, his voice rising. He was glaring at him now.

"Yes, do you need the definition?"

"You're the one being an asshole!" Dick fought back.

"What did you say?" The nerve of this child.

"What, do you need a definition?"

"Enough of this!" Damian snapped, with such alarming volume that Dick drew back—though his eyes still had the same, unflinching fire in them. "The sooner we finish this, the sooner we can get back. We're going to jump again. Understood?"

"Yes," Dick said finally.

"One. Two. Go."

Something went wrong. Damian jumped but the chain pulled him back—Dick must have waited too long to jump, the weight stunting Damian's jump, and they both got dragged into the water. The cold current hit Damian all at once but he forced himself to the surface, cold water in his face and mouth. The stream twisted and turned, pulling him down, deeper and further into the cave—but he quickly reacted, grabbing a passing rock and holding on.

As he held on, his arm was pulled downstream and he nearly let go, a quick reminder that he and Dick were still linked together. He wrapped his hand around the chain for extra leverage, yanking Dick against the current to join him at the rock.

There was a moment spent to allow them to sputter out water and catch their breaths. Once Damian had regained himself, he glanced over at Dick, who was glaring at him through his wet bangs.

"Why would you change it back to _go_?" Dick said, grumbling.

"I should have just crossed and dragged you in the water," Damian said, returning the look.

"That _is_ what you're doing," Dick said coldly.

They eventually got back up on the rocks and tried it again, getting the last light. They had to return back up the way they came, their clothes and bodies drenched as they walked up the path in the cold, unforgiving cave. When they finally made it to the top, Bruce was waiting to remove their cuffs. The minute he was free, Dick took the nearest seat, emptying the water from his shoes. Alfred approached him, handing him a fuzzy towel. He murmured a thanks as he took it. After a moment, Alfred looked closer, grabbing Dick's wrist and taking a look at his palm.

Bruce looked at Damian as he removed his cuff. "Dry off and do it again."

Dick's shoulders slumped at the news. Damian, on the other hand, had had enough.

"Is this all some type of game to you?" he accused, looking at Bruce. "This is a waste of time. I don't need some kid to do my job."

"Dick and I managed to do similar obstacles without nearly as many problems," Bruce said, not budging.

"That's not the point! The point is that this is completely unnecessary. Batman doesn't need a—a _sidekick_. Especially when it's some _child_."

"I had you, didn't I?"

"I spent my entire life being trained for that cowl. I grew up being trained by the best masters—"

"By _assassins_ ," Bruce corrected, an edge to his voice. At that, Damian paused, past memories floating back to him. The moment he failed to answer created an awkward tension. Bruce must have realized the nerve he struck because he sighed a little, changing his tone, and said, "This isn't negotiable. Do it again."

Alfred walked over, offering Damian a towel of his own. Damian looked at it and shook his head, heading toward the staircase. No one chased after him. He made it up to the manor, dripping the whole way, and moved into the bathroom connected to his room. He started up the shower.

As he waited for the water to warm up, he looked into the mirror. He wondered what he was going to do. He wondered if it was better to give up—honestly, conceding seemed to be less degrading than all of the little tricks his father wanted him to do. But it wasn't in his nature to just _quit_ , and honestly, he didn't have anywhere else to go. He thought about doing it all over again—travelling the world, spending nights in foreign places. Wandering, not aimlessly, but certainly without deeper purpose. But in the end, no matter how much he imagined it, he always envisioned himself circling back to the manor.

He sighed a little and pulled off his shirt. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of something. He checked the back of the shirt, remembering when Dick had grabbed onto him to prevent himself from falling on that first rock. He looked at the pink stain—diluted from the water and running down the white fabric. He looked at Dick's blood for a moment, mind drifting somewhere far with his father's words in his ears, and a low, dull guilt filled him.

* * *

Damian stared down at the cowl. It still contained the design he was familiar with, the one he had looked up at for so many years, except this time it was fitted for his face. The only noticeable difference was that it wrapped around the jawline and chin. Similar, but still distinctly _his_. He had wanted it for so long.

It was the rest that he was worried about.

Even after a week of training with Dick underneath his father's guidance, Damian was skeptical. He would have to make a good impression for his father and he was genuinely worried that the kid was going to ruin that for him. He glanced over at Dick, who was nearly finished getting into his uniform. He had just finished zipping up the red vest.

Damian turned back to the cowl, finally pulling it on. As he fitted it to his face, his father came around, leaning in close to get a look at it. It wasn't the first time Damian had worn it—he had tried on the prototypes. Still, his father narrowed his eyes, pointing to two spots on Damian's face.

"Those two corners need to be taken in a little more. Does it feel fine underneath the eyes?"

It felt fine—but his father was a perfectionist. Damian ran his fingers along the edge to demonstrate. "Sealed."

"Good," Bruce said, stepping back. "It should be fine for now. I just want tonight to be patrol night. We're going to keep it simple."

"What about your cases? Haven't they been waiting long enough?"

Bruce frowned a little. Damian had his answer—his father must have been antsy the entire time he was recovering from his injury, wondering if his cases would be left unsolved. He showed restraint, simply answering with, "Let's just focus on tonight."

Damian heard voices behind him.

"Master Dick, your belt is on upside down."

"Whoops."

 _Tonight_ , Damian thought, glowering. His excitement was stuffed out with the reminder that he would not be performing alone.

He put on the rest of his uniform and waited by the batmobile. Dick finally joined him, stopping when he saw Damian's uniform.

"No cape?" he asked him, looking at the long jacket.

"This will have better protection and it's easier for me to walk around in," Damian explained. "I never wore a cape."

"Right," Dick said, nodding. Damian remembered that he had seen the tapes of his missions. "Still, it's Batman. I just assumed it'd look the same. But I guess it's _not_ the same."

Damian wondered a little what Dick meant by that, trying to determine if he should feel slighted. Bruce approached them.

"Alfred and I will both be monitoring the city cameras. We'll be available over commlink. Get to downtown and we'll forward you the police signals. Remember, this is the first night Batman has returned. The public reaction might not be warm." Bruce backed away. "I'll leave you to it. Good luck out there."

"Bruce," Dick said suddenly, before he could turn away. Dick seemed suddenly unsure when Bruce stared down at him. "After patrol, do you think we'll be able to go back to our old cases?"

Bruce considered the question for a moment. Damian wondered about the hesitation, when he had just asked Bruce the same question a few moments ago and got a prompt response. Finally, he answered, "We have to start out slow, Dick. But I promise you, I haven't forgotten about them." Suddenly, a thought occurred to him, and he corrected himself, "Robin, I meant to say."

Dick nodded quietly. He even smiled but Damian caught the look in his eyes and couldn't help but feel that the smile was forced.

The two got in the car. Damian knew how to operate it—but still, when the seat adjusted to suit him, and his hands touched the steering wheel, he paused. It was like all of his boyhood fantasies coming to life. He remembered all of the days he had spent as a kid trying to beg and trick his father into letting him drive it—and he had eventually learned to drive many vehicles, but never the one that mattered.

"Does it feel cool?"

Damian blinked. He hadn't even realized he had been awestruck. He glanced over at Dick, who was smiling. This one felt a little more real.

"The first time I saw it, I wanted to drive it," he said, knowing.

Damian didn't have anything scathing to say—mostly because Dick had caught him. He had been waiting for this.

When the gate opened and the car took off, racing down the tunnel with lights to guide the way, full speed with nothing to hold him back, Damian was transported to a different time. It didn't matter how many years it had been or how many times he had done it. It didn't matter what seat he was sitting in or what mask he wore. Travelling down that tunnel always made him feel like a kid—the adrenaline, the excitement, bubbling up deep inside. No matter where Damian had gone or what he did, very few things had come even close to the experience of those few, brief moments before patrol. Nothing had ever felt as spiritual.

He wanted to savor the moment—there was no way of knowing if he'd ever be able to experience it again, had no way of knowing if his father planned on taking it all out from under him. But his curiosity got the better of him, and he glanced at the seat next to him. Dick stared forward—and it was odd, to see this boy who was normally bouncing all over the place, suddenly sitting so still. And yet, Damian understood all too well.

When they had made their way into Gotham, the car was parked in the downtown safehouse. As they were leaving the safehouse, Dick began to talk to him.

"Do you have a plan for tonight?"

"It all depends on what signals get picked up. The best thing to do, for now, is to get to high ground so we can survey the streets while we wait for a signal." Talking in instructions made Damian feel like he was parroting his father.

They took the path leading to the surface—a discrete exit leading into an old subway tunnel. As they walked the path toward the abandoned station, Dick continued to bombard Damian with useless words.

"When was the first time you went on patrol?"

" _Tt_. What, was there no video of it?"

"I've seen a lot of things but I don't know the stories behind them," Dick said, shrugging. He thought for a moment, the sounds of their echoing footsteps filling the cessation, before adding, "I've been training for awhile. Bruce says—"

"You can't use his name."

"What am I supposed to call him?"

Damian wasn't sure. Normally it'd be Batman—but he wasn't Batman at the time being. "You would just refer to the Cave, I suppose."

"I thought that was for Alfred."

"Well, they both work in the Cave now."

"Okay, well… back at the Cave, I was told that I had a lot of potential. But I don't think I can fight like you can. Do you think you could show me how you do it?"

Damian ran out of patience. Deciding that it was the perfect time since his father wasn't there to intervene, Damian decided to put the foot down. He halted, Dick nearly crashing into him. Dick simply blinked up at him, unsure of the sudden shift.

"Let's get something straight right now: you're my father's pet experiment. Not mine. If it was up to me, you wouldn't be here," Damian said with a bit of a hiss. Dick's expression turned bitter but he kept his mouth shut, simply glowering as Damian went on. "This is a temporary alliance, nothing more. He wants me to teach you—so fine. I'll teach you. First lesson: shut up."

"That's… not a lesson. And Bruce said that I should only be quiet when we're sneaking around, and that otherwise, I should be distracting."

" _Cave_ ," Damian corrected. "And he's not here. _I_ am. So shut up. Second of all: you're only going to be surveying. I don't need to be tripping over you or falling into the Gotham River because you can't understand directions."

"That was _your_ fault—"

" _Shut. Up_. Third: don't ask me questions."

"Isn't that Lesson One?" Dick said dryly.

They stared each other down for a few good moments.

Damian turned on his heel, the ends of his jacket flitting behind him. The echoing footsteps resumed.

They made it to a rooftop—another sight that Damian had missed. He looked out at the city at night, the downtown lights sparkling like gold. He watched carlights and neon signs and flashing police sirens. Damian closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the sounds and feeling the rooftop winds go by.

It took him a moment to realize that the end of his jacket was being pulled, but not by the wind. He glanced down at Dick, who was sitting on the roof cross-legged, the edge of his jacket in Dick's hands. Dick was tracing his thumbs around the tapered edge.

"What are you doing?" Damian said, almost sighing. He yanked his jacket back.

"It's pointed—like bat wings," Dick said, as if that somehow explained _why_. "Did you know bats can also be called _flying foxes_?"

"Again, those are fruit bats…"

There was a click over the commlink. Damian and Dick both stopped, listening to Bruce's voice come in.

"We picked up on a signal close to your location. A fight broke out in _Lenny's Pub_ on 5th and Nicholson—"

"Batman's fighting bar fights now?" Damian responded wryly.

"We're starting out small," Bruce said, tone insistent.

"Everyone deserves a helping hand," Alfred added in a chipper tone.

Damian rolled his eyes. Soon he'd be saving cats from trees and helping old ladies cross roads. He started to take off but he felt a tug on his jacket, firm this time.

"Nicholson is that way," Dick said, pointing his thumb over his shoulder.

"No, it isn't."

"Yes, it is," Dick said, firmly. "Batman taught me—I mean, at the Cave, I had to learn and memorize all of Gotham's streets. Nicholson is _that_ way."

"I had the same training—"

"Yes, _years_ ago. I'm telling you, it's _this_ way."

Dick had a point. Damian had been gone from Gotham for so long—who knows how it had changed. He reminded himself to memorize the new streets. He sighed a little to himself.

"Lead the way. And be quick about it."

It was the first time Damian had really seen Dick in action, save for the few glimpses inside of the training room. Being small, his strides weren't as long as Damian's, so he was not faster. But he was still swift. What was more noticeable was how unflinching he was. He improvised new routes and moved over obstacles in their paths with remarkable quickness.

They made it in time. All of the large window panes were shattered, bodies strewn outside. But there were still dozens of people inside, punching, shoving, kicking. Damian grimaced a little. He could smell booze from where he lurked.

"Wait here," Damian said. Dick shook his head.

"We're supposed to stick together."

Damian opened his mouth to argue—but suddenly a thought crossed his mind, followed by the image of blood on white fabric. He relented.

"Fine. But you need to stay out of the way while I subdue them. Make sure the bystanders and workers are safe, lead them out of the fray."

Dick nodded in understanding, the first semblance of obedience and respect that Damian had received from him yet. They scaled down from the roof. Damian charged in first through the open window, rushing his way into the center of the chaos.

It was the first time in awhile that he had seen any action—it'd be a lie if he didn't find it exhilarating, even though the drunks were hardly a match. Their only advantage was the sheer amount of people and their unpredictability.

He punched them, tripped them, slammed them into tables and walls. By the time they had processed that he was a threat, he had already subdued a few of them. One person charged but Damian stepped out of the way, letting them slip and trip in the broken glass. Another came directly at him, but a quick palm strike to the nose stopped him dead in his tracks and left him with blood running down his face.

Damian saw someone in his peripherals, turned to grab the raised arm, twisting it so it'd drop the broken beer bottle. The man stopped, looked at his arm, then looked back at Damian with wide eyes. He was terrified.

At that, Damian couldn't help but grin.

Goddamn.

He loved the cowl.

He tossed the man into another, knocking them both down. Another tried to come up from behind but Damian already heard him coming, stomping on his foot, swinging his arm back to hit the man across the jaw and bringing him down. By the time he was done, all of the perpetrators were rolling around on the floor, groaning.

Aside from one, who was too busy puking his drinks onto the ground.

It was time to tie them up and let GCPD have them. Damian heard voices from behind the bar, suddenly remembering Dick. He turned the corner, finding two bartenders huddled underneath. Dick was taking a look at one of them, who had a large cut above her brow. Dick just finished applying a bandage to it.

"You need to be quicker than that," Damian said.

Dick shrugged, not tearing his gaze away.

"I wasn't expecting you to be a punching bat-tornado. So what if I'm a slowpoke? I didn't want to mess it up. She had glass in her cut." Dick grabbed gauze from his belt, wiping away the remaining blood. "I'll be right there."

Damian didn't argue. He saw someone, in the corner of his eye, trying to stumble away. His reflexes quick, he swung a batarang, catching the man's hoodie and pinning it to the wall.

Batarangs. He had missed them too.

Dick joined him shortly, helping him zip-tie the men. But in the middle of it, Damian stopped, hearing sirens. He stepped closer to the window, watching a police car speed past them. Followed by a second.

"Robin. We need to go."

Dick had seen it too. A look of worry crossed his face but he frowned, shaking his head. "We're not done here. The police still haven't shown up."

"Whatever is going on is probably way more important—they're so tied up that they can't get a car out here."

"Which is why we need to be here," Dick said, insistent. "Do you remember what _they_ told us? Everyone deserves a helping hand."

Damian didn't know why he was wasting his time.

"Fine. Wait here then," Damian said, stepping out of the bar.

"Hold on—"Dick started but Damian was already taking off.

Damian chased the cars, just a few blocks, where he found the scene of a gas station robbery. The police were at a stand-off with an armed robber, who held a gas station attendant as his hostage.

"Batman, what's your location?" Bruce's voice suddenly came in. It took Damian a second to register the moniker. "Your tracker says you're nowhere near _Lenny's_."

"Already took care of it. I'm at _Dyno Fuel_. There's a hostage situation."

"I thought I told you that we were starting small," Bruce said sharply. "More than that, Robin's tracker—"

"And I told you: I don't need a sidekick."

Damian threw a batarang at the robber's hand, knocking the gun out of his hands. He quickly leapt from his place in the shadows, picking up the hostage and carrying him behind police lines. There were more armed robbers from inside the building, who began to shoot at the vehicles. Everyone ducked down.

"Batman?" Damian heard one of the officers say in a surprised voice, but Damian was already taking off.

He swung around the building, concealing himself behind vehicles and fixtures, taking the side entrance into the gas station. The bright lights and smell of stale coffee instantly bombarded him. The ringing of the door alerted one of the robbers, who aimed his gun but Damian had already closed in. He twisted the man's wrist, slamming it on the counter to make him drop the gun. He repositioned his hold on the man, using him as a hostage for the rest of the armed robbers.

To Damian's surprise, the other robbers didn't give a shit. Even with one of their guys being used as a shield, they aimed their guns. Damian quickly took the guy with him as he ducked behind an aisle so neither of them would be shot. Damian quickly applied pressure to the back of the man's neck, making him pass out so he wouldn't be in the way. He ducked behind the next aisle just as someone made it around the corner.

He waited for the robber to come into his aisle, immediately uppercutting him and knocking him to the ground. He turned, suddenly halting when he saw someone else enter the aisle, his gun raised and ready to shoot, the barrel staring Damian down.

Damian quickly reached towards his belt for a batarang but then suddenly, the man was struck in the temple by a flying soda bottle, staggering him. Damian raced forward, kicking him down to the ground.

Damian glanced over at Dick, who was standing closest to the drinks case. Damian thought he had heard the door ring open but had been distracted by the robbers. Damian was only surprised that he had managed to catch up.

Dick had possibly saved him—but there was no triumph in his expression. He gave Damian an unhappy, almost disappointed, look.

"We're supposed to stick together."

GCPD came in and arrested the men. Damian and Dick got out of the store, quick. When they were at a distance, Damian pressed the button on the side of his cowl, speaking into the commlink.

"Cave, the robbery situation at _Dyno Fuel_ has been taken care of. What is the next objective?" There was a silence. Damian could feel Dick's eyes on him, watching him, likely just as confused. Damian spoke again, "Cave, do you copy?"

Damian cursed under his breath at the silence. He wondered if the cowl wasn't working after all. But then there was suddenly a screech that sounded like tires. Damian turned to look down the road, just as something approached him.

Both Dick and Damian stepped back, startled, as they came face to face with what looked like a robot—standing several feet over Damian's head. The robot was black and sleek with two points at the top—a trait that was a little too familiar.

"What?" Damian said under his breath, staring at the robo-Bat completely perplexed. He looked closer, something about the coating and the red lights oddly familiar. Almost like—

"Is that… the batmobile?" Dick asked, eyeing it oddly.

"Yes," Damian said, realization slowly dawning on him.

"Did you know it could do that?" Dick asked.

"It's new," Damian said, flatly, and he didn't bother resisting when a net suddenly shot out of its core—the trunk—and enveloped them both. He was, however, not happy when it suddenly yanked them both up—reeling them into the trunk, and closing shut. It was dark for a moment. Suddenly, red light filled the space.

Damian glared down at Dick, careful to avoid the foot that was near his face.

Dick narrowed his eyes in return.

"Don't look at me. This isn't _my_ fault," Dick said, annoyed.

There was a crackle followed by the sound of Bruce's voice in the commlinks. He spoke in a voice that Damian could never hope to imitate.

"I'm bringing you both back to the Cave. _Now_."

Damian shifted uncomfortably in the cramped space. He sighed.

"I can't say I'm entirely pleased with these circumstances right now—but I have to admit, Father, after years of begging you to make a mecha-Bat, I'm impressed that you've actually pulled it off."

" _No. Talking._ "

* * *

There was a lot of talking—it's just that none of it came from Damian or Dick. Damian watched his father, bored, as he yelled. How Damian's father had managed to come up with an entire speech in the few moments it took for the transforming batmobile to drag them back into the Cave, Damian couldn't be sure, but Bruce had managed to list off a whole list of things without ever repeating himself once. Considering the batmobile was already fitted with a net, Damian could only assume that his father had used the whole week preparing for the worst—including the speech he was going to lecture them with.

Dick took it a little more harshly. He was shrinking further into his seat with every word. He probably didn't even know that Bruce could be that loud.

"—if you two can't listen, there won't be another chance!" Bruce finished, pointing. " _Understand_?"

"Yes," Dick said, voice cracking.

"Yes," Damian said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

Bruce retreated into the depths of the Cave, towards the computer so he could log files. Damian and Dick, out of uniform, made their trek back up to the manor. Damian watched Dick closely—after their training practices, he noticed that Dick always took two steps at a time. He noticed because Dick also wouldn't walk in a straightforward direction, but would instead zigzag up the steps—to the point where Damian would get dizzy just watching him. This time, Dick was practically dragging his feet up the stairs.

He was taking Bruce's lecture way too personally. Damian knew he shouldn't get involved—but he felt partly responsible, since they had gotten dragged from patrol early based on his decision to not follow his father's directions. Plus, he still remembered those first few days he had lived with his father—how degraded, terrified and defensive he had felt when his father first yelled at him.

Despite himself, Damian said it anyways, "He's always been like that."

Dick glanced up at him but his gaze fell back on the ground. His arms hung by his side.

"He's never satisfied, even if you do your best. He doesn't trust anyone's judgment but his own. But he'll eventually move onto the next thing," Damian said. Although, he wondered how much the latter was true. He wasn't sure if he and his father were ever going to move on from the past five years.

"He's not so bad," Dick said, shrugging. He then murmured, what Damian believed to be, " _Comparatively_."

"What?" Damian said, snapping his head in Dick's direction. Dick just smiled.

"Nothing," he said quickly and suddenly he was running off, two steps at a time.

Damian felt exhausted just watching him.

He returned to his room, settling down for the night. As he went to go to sleep, he stared down his bed for a moment, and sighed a little to himself. He climbed onto the bed, sinking into the plush mattress, and crossed his hands on his chest. His brow furrowed a little.

He turned on his side, the bed creaking lightly. Still, it didn't feel right.

He got up, grabbing his pillows and blankets. He set up a space on the floor, lying on his back. Even with the carpet, the floor felt rigid and stiff—especially compared to the cloud of a bed that he had just been in.

He fell asleep in seconds.

* * *

Damian could hear voices in the background. After a week of being forced to follow his father's regimine, Damian was eager to return to the one he had set up for himself and had been practicing for the past few years. This involved being in the Cave at a different time than everyone else—alone, which to Damian's surprise, his father had allowed for as long as he did. He wasn't entirely surprised that his father _mysteriously_ decided to bump up Dick's training regime to an earlier time that day. What he wasn't expecting was his father to suddenly interrupt.

Damian was in the process of beating a punching bag when his father suddenly intervened, holding the bag. Damian immediately stepped back, sighing.

"What did I do this time?" he said, annoyed.

"Those moves. Where did you learn them?" Bruce's brow was furrowed. Damian glanced up at him.

"I didn't spend the last five years putzing around."

Damian could see the frustration in his father's eyes—but there was something else mixed in them, something almost hesitant. "Don't use them."

"I know what you're thinking," Damian said, his tone short. But in the back of his mind, hidden beneath his tone of indifference, sudden doubts began to rise. "I'm not that stupid."

"There's a reason why I taught you _my_ way, not _their_ way," Bruce said. He shook his head to himself. "I'll train you—"

"You've _already_ trained me."

"I'll _retrain_ you. Just don't use those moves."

"Contrary to what you insist on believing, I know what I'm doing. I haven't abandoned what you taught me. I've just added my new knowledge to it."

"I've already taken that knowledge and applied it to what I practiced _and_ taught you." Bruce frowned, spoke in an almost hushed voice, "What you're doing is dangerous—"

"What I'm doing is not _lethal_ ," Damian said, fed up. Bruce visibly tensed at the word. "Are you really so full of yourself? Do you think you're the only one that could adapt those disciplines into something usable? It's my own style, it's more efficient than what you use, and it's just as safe. Like I said, I know what I'm doing. You haven't put me on a serious mission since I've been here. Don't watch five minutes of me punching around an inanimate object and just _assume_ to know what I'm capable of."

"It's _because_ I know what you're capable of that I'm worried," Bruce said, glowering. "This goes back further than five minutes. This goes back further than five years."

"Yeah, and what _did_ happen for those five years?" Damian said, challenging him. "Until just now, you had no idea where I had been."

Bruce left it at that, but Damian knew him well enough to know that it wouldn't be the end of that conversation. Bruce returned to Dick, instructing him through his training, and Damian was left alone for his. Later on, Pennyworth approached Damian with a water and towel. Damian quietly accepted it.

"Master Damian, I couldn't help but notice your odd sleeping arrangements since your return home."

Damian knew what Alfred was referring to—the past few nights he had slept on the floor, and every time he left and returned to his room after Alfred's sweep of the manor, the bed was always remade. "You can just leave it, Alfred. I'll take care of it."

"That's no matter, Master Damian. If you would rather have a different set-up though, perhaps I could arrange it."

He took a drink of water. In that pause, he was momentarily distracted by his father and Dick talking in the background.

"How did I do?" Dick asked. Damian didn't see the task he had completed but the boy seemed out of breath.

"You need to focus more," Bruce said at once, ever the critic. "Also, you need to pay closer attention to what's behind you."

Dick nodded agreeably enough—but Damian could catch the hint of disappointment in his eyes. Damian nearly laughed. His father was never one for praise—something that Dick, apparently, still had not figured out. He almost forgot what Alfred was talking about.

"Do what you think is best, Pennyworth," Damian said offhandedly, wiping his face.

* * *

"There's been a report of a break-in. 1.5 miles from your location. Sending the coordinates now," Alfred's voice spoke in the commlink. Damian checked them, saw it was in a suburban area. He rolled his eyes—now they were dealing with house robberies.

They swung across the rooftops, the grappling guns made their trip quicker and faster. Near the outskirts of the coordinates, they had to take to the streets. The fenced houses were all cramped together, the streets quiet. Dick followed him closely as they reached the house.

The front door had definitely been busted into, a pile of rubble near the entrance. Normally, the protocol would be to observe first before running in—but since the house was broken into, Damian decided they couldn't afford to wait.

Damian carefully stepped into the dark house. He moved swiftly but silently, careful to not alert anyone to their position in case the break-in involved an armed robber. He heard light noises, sounding almost like crying.

Damian glanced back at Dick. Dick looked up at him, nodding once. He heard it too. Damian led the way, deeper into the house, turning a corner. He found a light coming from behind the door. He noticed a blood trail leading up to the closed room, where the soft sobbing came from within.

Damian opened the door. A woman was inside and she jumped when she saw Damian in the mirror, but Damian wrapped a hand around her mouth in time to stop her as she was about to scream.

"We're here to help you—"he started, but stopped when he looked down. The woman's hands were bleeding but it looked more like scrape marks. He noticed a thick splinter in her hand. He then looked up, noticing the bathroom window had been boarded up.

Damian frowned, letting go of her.

"Is this your house?" he asked, not bothering to hide the volume of his voice any longer.

The woman was still shaken but she nodded. Her hair looked matte, her roots gray. There was something in her eyes, something unhinged. Damian looked around the room—a bathroom—and started to notice the empty prescription bottles laying around and uncleaned floors.

"You're Batman," she said, and even though she seemed shaken up and looked crazy, she still sounded rational. "Are you here to help me find my daughter?"

"Your daughter?" Damian repeated. He frowned. "No, there was a report of someone breaking in. I thought you were being robbed—"

"No, that was me," she confessed, hands still dripping blood. "I locked myself out. Had to break my way in." Her eyes lit up. "But you're here. Maybe you can help me. My daughter is missing."

Damian drew back a step. He doubted this woman even had a daughter. "I think you're confused—"

"How long has she been missing?" Dick suddenly piped in. The woman had to tilt her head to see Dick, who was standing small behind Damian, practically hidden.

At that question, her eyes faded a little. She grabbed a towel off the rack, wrapping her hand in it. She pushed past them, leading them into a living room. She turned on the light.

Damian's brow furrowed. All of the windows were boarded up, crude looking nails sticking out of them. Stacks of newspapers littered the ground. Damian stopped, observing pictures. Pictures of a wife, a husband and a daughter. The portraits stopped when the girl looked about four or five. Damian frowned, looking closer. One of the photos was timestamped—over a decade ago.

Damian didn't like this.

Dick joined him by his side, looking at the photos.

The woman grabbed something from underneath a stack of papers, hurrying to Damian's side. She shoved the newspaper in Damian's hands—Damian read the date before the article, frowning.

"Her name is Cheyenne. She was sleeping in her room. I heard a noise in the middle of the night, went to check on her, and she was _gone_. The window was wide open. The police looked everywhere but couldn't find her."

Damian frowned, feeling uncomfortable. He glanced up at the woman. He hated the way she looked at him.

She wasn't afraid at all. Her eyes seemed to glow with hope.

"Maybe you could find her. You've done the impossible before."

"This incident happened twelve years ago," Damian said. "Have you heard anything about her?"

"No," she said, shaking her head. "The police—"

Damian handed back the newspaper. "Your daughter is dead."

"That's not true," she said, suddenly defensive. Eyes narrowed. "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but I can _feel_ it. I know she's alive. They never found her. She's alive, _somewhere_ —"

Damian shook his head to himself. This was a waste of their time. The woman looked at him for a long moment, silenced. At first there was anger in his eyes. But then the anger slowly dissipated, her face falling slowly.

"Batman thinks I'm crazy," she murmured with realization.

Damian turned to leave. He was near the busted door when he realized he wasn't being followed.

"Robin—"Damian started, looking around, trying to find him. He saw Dick standing with the woman, talking to her. Damian's shoulders fell. They didn't have time for this—there could be other police signals or reports. Important things. He moved forward, ready to yank Dick out of the conversation.

"Is this her?" Dick asked. He must have picked up one of the photos on the stand. The woman looked at it, eyes glossy.

"Yes," she murmured.

"Where was it?" he asked. Her gaze fell slightly. She shook her head to herself a little.

"At the zoo. But… the police already checked there."

"Gotham's zoo?"

"No, actually," she said. Her brow furrowed a little, the memory returning to her. "We were in Central City. We took a train all the way down there. It was our first big trip. We did all sorts of things, like the zoo. The aquarium. The museums. The parks."

"What was the best part?" Dick asked. Damian was beginning to feel frustrated—none of this information was relevant, and this case was closed anyways. But he began to notice a shift in the woman's face. Her face was softer, the tension and the anxiety beginning to slip away. Her eyes more fragile than frantic.

"The theatre. We saw _Cinderella_. She had never seen the musical before, only the movie. She sang the tunes for the rest of the trip—she didn't even know the words." Her gaze went somewhere distant. "I almost forgot about that."

"Maybe she'll show up again one day," Dick said after a moment. The woman's eyes clouded over, a sudden doubt crossing her features. But she looked down at Dick and nodded a little.

"Maybe," she said, her voice thick. "Thanks."

The trip back to downtown was quiet. The scene from inside the house kept replaying in Damian's head. He glanced back at Dick, who was trailing behind. He said what was bothering him, "That girl is dead."

Dick's gaze flickered up at him and then fell back down. "I know."

"You can't give people false hope like that."

Dick shook his head, disagreeing. "It's not false hope. She really believes her daughter is alive—and no one else believes her, so no one else will talk to her. I think she needed someone to talk to. I think she's been lonely for a long time."

"The sooner she wakes up and forgets, the sooner she can talk to people again."

"How could anyone forget their daughter?" Dick said quietly.

At that, Damian didn't know how to respond. They walked a little further in silence. Dick moved a little faster so he could walk in front of Damian. He started walking backwards so he could keep his eyes locked on Damian—Damian glared up at him in return.

"What?" he said in an irritated tone. Dick clearly had something he wanted to say. Dick seemed conflicted for a moment but he finally spoke what was on his mind.

"Bruce didn't forget you when you were gone."

Damian stopped in his tracks, staring at the kid incredulously.

"Sorry. I meant at the Cave," Dick corrected, not realizing the issue.

"What were you hoping to achieve by telling me that?" Damian said heatedly. Dick shrugged a little awkwardly.

"I don't know. You two are always arguing. That's why you left and everything, right?" Dick's eyes shifted to the side, face falling as he recalled the rest of the story that he was told, but he still looked up at Damian earnestly. "I know you said you were only here to be Batman. But I mean, you wouldn't have come back if you didn't care at least a little, right?"

Damian wanted to fight back but he faltered. The words hit him deeper than they should have.

He didn't think anyone would notice.

"And Bruce wouldn't have given you the cowl if he didn't trust you a little bit," Dick said. He was playing around with the edge of his cape, fidgeting a little. He wasn't sure how to interpret Damian's tension, it was making him nervous. But he kept talking anyways, "So maybe you two could get along."

"And why would I want to do that?" Damian instantly demanded. He didn't give Dick the opportunity to answer. "This isn't just some little family spat. This is deeper than that. I don't expect _you_ , a child, to understand it. Keep your nose in your own family politics."

Dick's eyes shifted to the side, his mouth shut. Damian realized his mistake a moment too late—Dick didn't have a family, not anymore. But somehow, that only egged him further on. He sensed the weakness there, had to strike.

"My father might have accepted you into his home, but that doesn't mean anything for _us_ , do you understand that? We're not family. We're not a team. So you can quit pretending to understand these things that are far above you just to get on my good side."

"What do your dad issues have anything to do with me?" Dick said, annoyed. "I don't need you to tell me these things—I haven't forgotten where I came from and who my parents are. But you still have this grudge against me when I haven't done anything! I'm not trying to _replace_ you!"

"The problem is that you're _in my way_ ," Damian shot back.

"And you're not in _my_ way? You think you're the only one being forced to work with someone you don't want to? The only reason I'm doing this is because of a promise I made with Batman. The _real_ Batman. I didn't sign up just to be used as an emotional punching bag!"

" _Tt_. What else are you good for? You're a handicap. You just drag Batman down," Damian shot back. Damian could sense the subtleties in Dick's expression—the wisps of uncertainty beginning to appear. Damian dug in deeper. "My father is missing his leg. _You_ were supposed to be his backup. And now I'm expected to drag you along when you've proven to be nothing but a nuisance."

Dick looked like he wanted to say more—but he suddenly turned his head, his jaw clenched shut. He shook his head to himself—the fire in his eyes was gone. He suddenly took off.

Damian started forward, to follow him, but he stopped himself. He watched the child prodigy take off—fast, but not quite so fast that Damian could not follow him. But he didn't have the heart for the chase—he was too angry, too bitter, and besides, he wouldn't know what to say. He watched the figure disappear into the shadows and he shook his head to himself. He had let this get carried away. He had let his rage get the best of him.

His father wasn't going to be happy about this.

* * *

Pennyworth was waiting at the platform when Damian drove in and parked. Damian felt the butler's eyes follow him as he got out of the batmobile—and sensed his confusion when a second person did not appear. He heard Alfred's footsteps as he moved closer to see if he could spot Dick inside of the vehicle but Damian did not comment on it. Did not tell him the truth. He moved briskly to the wall of equipment, ripping off the cowl and dropping it on the table.

"Where's Master Dick?" Pennyworth asked. Damian could hear the dread in his voice. Still, the Englishman called for him, "Master Damian?"

Damian ignored him. He unclipped the belt. Watched as the symbol of the Bat was tossed aside.

"Master Damian." Firmer this time. Horrified but resilient.

Bruce must have noticed the upset, set off by the volume of Pennyworth's voice. Damian could hear the heavier, uneven footsteps. He ignored it. He threw the jacket, covering up the cowl and belt. Undid the bracers. Just as he tugged them off and set them aside, he was roughly turned around.

"What'd you do to him?" Bruce instantly demanded. Damian didn't bother to shrug him off. His patience was gone—Bruce's words igniting an anger inside of him that he had tried to suppress for so long. He shoved Bruce off of him—Bruce wasn't even able to fight back, he stumbled back a step, nearly tripping but Alfred immediately rushed forward to make sure he got his balance back. Still, Bruce wasn't done. He glared at him, fury renewed. " _What'd you do_?"

"I didn't do _anything_ ," Damian snapped. He threw his gloves on the ground. "He ran off."

"He doesn't _run off_ ," Bruce hissed back, voice filled with contempt. Damian snorted at that—he could beg to differ. The only time he could get the kid to stay by his side was when they were handcuffed together. But that was beside the point—he knew what his father meant.

"Well he's gone, isn't he?"

Bruce stopped, inhaled to maintain his composure. But he was still livid. So livid that his hands were clenched, his voice shaking. "Where?" he said, struggling to maintain rationality. "Where did he go?"

"Hell if I know," Damian grumbled. "Maybe he ran off to join a circus."

"You said something to him. You messed with his head, somehow. You _said_ something or _did_ something—"

"We are wasting time," Pennyworth cut in, words sharp. Even he seemed like he was struggling to contain himself. "For God's sake, this is rubbish. We have a minor walking around downtown Gotham, at night, by himself! Miles and miles away from home! In a vigilante's garb, no less! As much as I trust Master Dick's abilities, we _must_ bring him back home now. We don't have time for some—some _squabble_."

"You need to go out there and look for him. You need to bring him back," Bruce said, looking at Damian.

Damian looked at his father. Perhaps Bruce's balance had been tipped by the prosthetic leg—but they were equal in height now.

Damian stepped forward, their eyes locked at perfect eye-level.

"He's your problem. Not mine."

Bruce started forward but Alfred immediately cut in between the two. Damian didn't flinch. Bruce's anger did not let down, his eyes still glaring into Damian's own, but the butler's interference had managed to stop him. Still, even Alfred looked at Damian with a deep, disapproving gaze in his eyes.

"This is unacceptable," Alfred told him.

"Tell that to the man who makes child soldiers," Damian said. He stepped back, gaze unbreaking. "He's your responsibility. Own up to it."

Damian headed towards the staircase.

"Only _you_ can take responsibility for yourself, Damian," Bruce called after him. Damian listened but kept walking, appearing unnerved as possible. "Keep blaming me all you want, curse me until I'm dead, but I never made your choices for you!"

* * *

They didn't find Dick.

Damian had been watching out the window when he saw the boy return, on his own. He watched from the bedroom window as a shadow made it past the gate. The lights then turned on and Dick looked up, just in time for Pennyworth to step outside the door. He was down to the bare minimum of his uniform—his bigger items like his cape, vest and mask had all been shoved in what looked like a cheap bag that he must have picked up, leaving him in what could pass as civilian, albeit one with bad fashion sense. Still, it had been several hours and he doubted the boy had carried much money on his person—Damian was sure that Dick must have made most of the walk to the manor by himself. Damian couldn't see Dick's face, but he sensed the weariness in the way he carried himself. Saw the dawn on the horizon, indicating the hour.

When Pennyworth rushed forward to meet him halfway, Dick stopped in place. Didn't bother to resist or return the hug that Pennyworth captured him in—likely, he was too tired to return it. Pennyworth released him, kneeling so they could be at eye level. Alfred said something but Damian couldn't see his face to read the words—could barely see them, period, in the dim lighting. Dick was saying something—but his head was lowered as he spoke. Damian couldn't understand.

Alfred placed a hand on Dick's shoulders, bringing him back in.

* * *

The computers had been shut down. The Cave was eerily quiet, save for the light rumble of the generators. Bruce had dark circles underneath his eyes—Damian couldn't be sure if it was his on-and-off insomnia, his age, or just the stress of the past few days. He imagined it was a combination of all.

"You were right about one thing," Bruce said, after a silence. He had his elbow propped on the table, his weary face in his hand. He forced himself to reposition, sitting up. "He is my responsibility."

Damian didn't say anything. He stared at Bruce from across the table, waiting for the lecture. Waiting for the inevitable boot that kicked him out the door.

"But I can't be out there. If I could, I would. In a heartbeat," Bruce said, slowly shaking his head. There was solemnity to his face. Damian knew the words were true. The bitter reminder of Bruce's handicap also had an effect on Damian.

He tried to remember his purpose for being there.

"I spent a lot of time thinking last night and today. I thought about what the best plan was going to be. I was so furious with you that I tried to come up with a solution without you in it," Bruce said, brow furrowing as he thought back on it. Finally, he looked up at him. "I couldn't come up with one. I need you here. I need you, as Batman. And I need both of you to somehow, some way, work together."

Damian shifted in his chair. "The purpose of Batman is to protect Gotham. I can do that more efficiently without a partner."

"Inheriting the cowl means inheriting everything that I worked and strived for," Bruce said firmly.

A dull irritation began to swell up inside of Damian. However, anger wasn't going to convince his father. He had tried that, time and time again, and it didn't work. He already prepared for this.

"You know he's not ready for this," he said in a low voice. "You know he's unqualified. He's not like you and me—he's not hardened. Even if he survives, even with all of the training in the world, he'll eventually crumble."

"Don't act like I don't realize what you're doing," Bruce said, locking eyes with him from across the table. Damian paused, realizing that he was speaking the truth. "Leave the mind games to your mother."

"Am I wrong?" Damian said anyways. He shrugged. "What do you think is going to happen to him in five, ten years? Do you think he'll handle it better than I did? Do you think he'll be another _mistake_?" Bruce was a statue, quiet and unmoving. Damian continued, "I didn't learn mind games from Mother. I learned them from you. You're using him in the hopes that it'll tame me—that if I work with him, I'll understand what it was like for you to work with a child-partner. But it's not going to work. Such sentiments don't apply to me."

Damian knew he had broken Bruce's facade. His silence said it all.

"We don't have to play games. We don't have to get some child involved in our politics. Just give me the cowl and all of that can be put aside. And you can start over, _actually_ start over. You'll have Richard, he'll be the son you've always wanted, and you can be the father you never had. And Gotham will still be saved—you'll have your justice, without any more sacrifice." Damian was trying to gauge Bruce's reaction but the man's shell had yet to be broken into. "It'd be easy. At the very least, you won't have to deal with such a difficult child."

"It was never about it being difficult, Damian," Bruce said, and he regarded him with almost a look of sadness. "I could handle difficult. It was when you stopped trying that we became like this."

Damian wasn't sure how to respond to that.

"He _chose_ to be Robin. This isn't about you or me."

"Is that what you tell yourself to cope with it?" Damian murmured. "That it was a choice?"

Bruce paused, letting the words sink in. He changed the topic, "What did you say to him?"

"He didn't tell you?" Damian was a bit surprised.

"No," Bruce said, shaking his head.

Damian hesitated a little. He knew Bruce was not going to be happy with his confession. Still, he spilled out the words anyways, as bluntly honest as possible, "He left after I blamed him for your injury."

"Christ, Damian," Bruce hissed under his breath, shaking his head to himself. There was a moment of internal struggle—his brow was deeply furrowed, he couldn't even look Damian in the eye. He was reconsidering his words and Damian expected to be kicked out right then and there. But Bruce closed his eyes for a moment, struggled to compose himself, and said, "You weren't even there for that."

"What happened?" Damian finally asked. Bruce rubbed his face, his eyes looking faded and tired.

"It was our first mission. We were out on patrol when there were reports of a huge fire. Some arsonist had set off some major buildings. Dick and I went to investigate. The fire department was already on-scene but the flames had already spread to the block. Dozens of people were trapped inside. I had to go in but Dick had to stay behind. He wasn't equipped for it. For a lot of the people, I was too late. I found a body that had been charred." Bruce's brow furrowed, recalling it. Damian listened, his chest tight. "It took a long time for me to come back out. I didn't want to leave until I had found _someone_. I didn't want to accept that it was too late. And thankfully, I did. Some man on the third floor. I managed to get him out. But by then, so much time had passed. Dick got impatient, decided to go in and look for me. I had to go back in and get him out. But the building was weak at that point—I remember a beam falling, and that was it. It wasn't anything crazy or extravagant. It was just… an accident."

Damian's eyes lowered.

"I should have been there," Damian said, quietly. There was a shame to his words. A low guilt inside of his chest. "This never would have happened if I had been there. You would have had help—you wouldn't have had to go back in there."

"See, that's what you _don't get_ ," Bruce said, cutting him off. "I would have done it for anyone. I would have done it for him, you, a stranger, my worst enemy— _anyone_. I would have done it because it was the _right thing_ to do—and you can't understand that." Bruce paused. For once, he didn't seem angry. He seemed disappointed. Maybe even sad. He slowly shook his head to himself. "And that's why you can't do it. That's why you'll never be Batman."

* * *

Alfred had kept his distance from Damian since the incident with Dick. Alfred used to invite Damian to meals everyday, even though Damian had rejected him each and every time, and now he had quit bothering to even ask. Although Damian still would have said no, he found himself a little disappointed that Alfred had given up. He had finally made enemies with everyone in the Manor, it seemed.

He was training more frequently. He wasn't looking to get stronger, he just needed something to distract his mind. Everyone allowed him his space in the training room. Damian hadn't run into Dick—the last time he had seen him, it was from his window when he witnessed him returning home. He was beginning to wonder if Bruce found other times to train him or if training had been put on hold altogether. Damian couldn't be sure, Bruce hadn't discussed any plans with him since their talk.

He was beginning to feel isolated again. It was strange, considering how many years he had spent wandering alone. It had only taken him a few weeks to get accustomed to having people around again.

After another day spent, Damian returned to his room. To his surprise, there was a noticeable difference. The bed was missing. Damian approached the spot, kneeling down to touch the rolled-up futon that had taken its place. Suddenly he remembered his conversation with Pennyworth, how he had noticed that Damian had been sleeping on the floor.

It seemed that Pennyworth had remembered as well.

Damian showered and got ready for bed. He unfurled the futon in a methodical way, unfolding the neat stack of blankets and sheets as well. When he laid down, his hands folded over his chest, he stared at the ceiling. It was better, much better. But he was still too awake, his mind reeling with thoughts that he had hoped to escape when he was in the training room.

The stasis couldn't last forever. Damian had to get back out into the city and start fighting crime. But there were so many unspoken feelings inside of the Manor, so much lost wandering and confusion and emotions. Damian was uncertain of the future.

He kept reminding himself why he was there.

Damian suddenly heard something above him, drawing his attention to the ceiling. At first he wondered if he had imagined it, but then he heard it again. He realized it must have been coming from the roof—and while he supposed it could have been a raccoon or something along those lines, it sounded far too heavy. Far too similar to footsteps. Perplexed, he swept the blankets off of him and turned on the lamp on the nearby table. He heard the sound again and decided to investigate.

Damian opened up his window, grounding himself on the ledge before he found a notch where he pulled himself up. He climbed to the roof as silently as he could, the tiles rough against his bare feet, and at the top his suspicions were confirmed.

He grabbed Dick's shoulder and the boy was so surprised that he jumped at the touch. He turned around, terrified, but slowed down when he saw who it was.

"What are you doing up here?" Damian demanded.

"I can't sleep," Dick said, shrugging a little. He looked back down at the ground, almost sullenly, and kicked idly at the roof tiles. "Sometimes I come up here. The air clears my thoughts—but I don't want to wake anyone up, so I just climb out my window."

"What, and hobbling around on the roof won't wake anyone up?"

"No one's caught me before?" Dick said sheepishly.

Damian looked at him long and hard. Finally, he shook his head to himself. His head was formulating bad ideas.

"Come on," he said anyways, heading back towards where he had climbed up. He didn't hear Dick move so he said, "I have something that will help you."

Damian led him through his window—and even though Dick had been so reluctant to follow, his eyes immediately scanned the room curiously. Without hesitation, he immediately began to wander around the room—looking at Damian's things. Damian left him to it, returning to the bedside table and rummaging through the drawer. He pulled out a case.

He caught Dick looking at a stand on his dresser. Hanging from the stand were different talismans he had collected during his worldly travels—many of them incredibly old. Dick's eyebrows were furrowed, clearly wondering what they were. He held one of the amulets against his fingers, trying to get a better look at the inscription.

"Don't touch that," Damian said disapprovingly. He brushed it out of Dick's hand, their fingers touching. Dick jerked his hand away, suddenly, like he had touched fire. Damian stared at him a moment longer but just said, "It's old and fragile."

"What is it?"

"It was given to me for completing my training in a temple. It's a mark of strength."

"What does it say?"

"Those are symbols, not letters."

"What kind of temple was it?"

Damian was getting impatient. "A secret temple, with young disciples who have their tongues cut for asking too many questions, and their hands chopped off for touching what's not theirs."

Dick didn't flinch. He even smiled a little. "I'm guessing it's not my type of scene, then."

"Sit," Damian said, and they both settled on the rug. Dick watched closely, almost with an intensity, as Damian began to open the case in his hands. Inside the case were small vials.

Dick leaned forward, trying to get a good look. Damian stopped and stared down at him, disapprovingly. Dick caught the look and leaned back, shrugging sheepishly.

"Here," Damian said. "Hold out your hands."

"What is it?" Dick asked but he held out his hands anyways, palms up as Damian indicated.

Damian didn't answer. He twisted the cap off of the vial, greeted by the sweet smell, and used the piper attached to add a few drops of the oil in Dick's palms.

The corner of Dick's mouth quirked up in a smile. "This seems kinda girly."

His immaturity was showing. "Just rub your hands together. Let it absorb into the skin."

Dick did as instructed.

"Breathe it in."

Dick gave his hands a tentative sniff. "Smells… flowery. Its nice though."

"Breathe it," Damian said, getting impatient again. He didn't understand why he always had to repeat his instructions. Dick obliged, cupping his hands together. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. When he opened his eyes, there was a new look in his expression. He looked calm.

"Will this really be enough to make me sleep?" Dick asked, skeptical.

"Nothing is guaranteed, it's not magic—just old, traditional remedies. But it should help you relax, at least," Damian said. Although, truthfully, he often found himself wondering if Dick _ever_ relaxed. "Do it again."

Dick ducked his head down, breathing into his palms again. He pulled up, nodding a little.

Dick looked over at the case. He scooted in a little closer, looking at the rest of the tiny little vials. Damian allowed it.

"What does that one do?" Dick asked, pointing to one.

"The opposite," Damian said. "It wakes you up. Makes you feel energized."

"And that one?"

"It also rejuvenates. Many of these do the same thing, they just smell differently."

"What about that one?"

"It's an aphrodisiac."

Dick blinked at the new word. "A what?"

Damian shut the case. He was not going to have this conversation.

"Did you get all of this stuff from your travels?" Dick asked.

"Yes."

"Where did you go?" Dick asked.

"Places you've never been."

"But I've been to a lot of places," Dick said. "Haly's isn't the only circus I've been a part of. During different seasons, my parents and I joined other troupes, including one in Europe."

Damian glanced at him. Sometimes he forgot that Dick had travelled, even though it was such an ingrained part of his character. Still, Damian shook his head. "Not these places."

Dick didn't argue. Instead, an expression passed his face. He suddenly seemed quiet, shrinking in place. Warily, he asked, "Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?"

Dick was more observant than Damian gave him credit for. Dick was suspicious, although he still did not realize the point. Did not realize how important he was. Damian now realized that his father was never going to give him a stamp of approval unless Dick gave it first. That Dick was the key to continuing forward, the path to the cowl.

"We have to work together," Damian said simply. But there was more to it than that.

Dick admired Damian. Damian could tell by all of the times he had caught him staring. And more than that, Damian sensed this desire in Dick. A desire to be liked, a desire to be loved—something that Bruce couldn't fulfill. A desire to be welcomed and fit in.

Damian put some of the oil on his own hands, carefully recapping the vial without spilling it. He set it on top of the case. He rubbed it on his hands, closer to the fingertips without letting it absorb all of the way.

"Turn this way."

Dick did as told. Damian lifted Dick's chin up. Dick was quiet, his eyes staring past Damian as Damian touched him, the fingers massaging his temples. The oil on his fingers left a trace of the scent on Dick's skin. Dick closed his eyes, breathed, and he reopened his eyes. He dared to look up at Damian, even though the rest of him seemed quiet and suddenly shy.

Damian leaned in, kissing his temple. A simple, chaste touch. Dick immediately froze in place—but Damian could feel their cheeks touching, sensed Dick's face burning up, and he did not leave. Damian wondered if Dick was pretending to have not noticed. But then Dick pulled back.

Damian could see the faint flush that was there on his face, but other than that, he seemed calm. Dick paused for a moment and looked at him, seeming to be in thought. Damian could tell what he was thinking. He was confused but curious. More than that, he liked the attention. He was deciding whether or not he could trust Damian.

Suddenly, Dick leaned up, darting a closed-mouth kiss on Damian, which landed on the corner of his mouth.

Damian blinked dumbly in surprise.

"Thanks. I should go back now," was all Dick said, and he got up and headed towards the open window. Damian listened to Dick's footsteps on the roof leading in the direction of his room.

He stopped, looking down. His fingertips were still bathed in the scent. He breathed it in, smelling the lavender and the rest of the remedy. But he still felt antsy, wondering how Dick had just one-upped him.


	2. Part 2

**A/N** : This is just a reminder that this story is meant to be read as one-shot, so the first scene in Part 2 takes immediately after Part 1.

* * *

Things slowly returned to normal.

Whatever normal was, anyways.

Damian was training, as always, when Bruce began to occupy the Cave at the same time. Bruce never said anything directly to him—but over time, the space they occupied began to overlap, and they could finally be in the same room as each other. Alfred started talking to him again, a few words here and there at first, but eventually with the same ease that he and Bruce were able to face each other. Then Dick picked up his training again and it was like everything had just been rebooted.

Dick never brought up what happened in Damian's room, and Damian didn't dare to mention it at all. But Damian did sense that Dick's apprehensions had slipped away. Dick started bothering him in the same way he bothered Alfred and Bruce—senseless chatter and questions. Damian would normally hate the unwanted attention—but he had expected this reaction, and was more than satisfied the few times he had caught his father watching them talk.

"When you travelled, did people know about Batman?" Dick asked, following him around the training room.

"Depends," Damian said. A lot of the places he stayed were hermited—but a lot of people did know Bruce Wayne, mostly because Damian had trained in the same temples that his father had trained, though few of them seemed to understand the connection between the man and the vigilante. The ones that did know the connection hardly cared.

"What about you?"

"Few people know about me. I wanted it that way."

"You caught so many criminals though," Dick said. The speed at which he talked began to grow faster and faster, his excitement rising, "Like that one time, when there was a Blackgate breach, and you and Bruce caught every single one of them in the same night. Bruce got a lot of them, but you caught more people than he did. Why wouldn't you want anyone to know about that?"

Damian suddenly felt oddly defensive being under Dick's scrutiny, even though Damian had nothing to fear from this child that was half his size. "I didn't do it for glory. It was easier to work in the shadows, anyways."

"Is it because you're shy?"

" _What_? Don't be ridiculous." Damian felt almost insulted by the insinuation. He wasn't sure where Dick came to that conclusion. Indeed, Dick just looked up at Damian blankly, lacking a follow-up argument. "I'm not timid. I'm just—"Damian wasn't sure of the right word so he used what he thought was the closest"—reserved."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"No, it's not."

"Damian," a voice suddenly cut in. It was Bruce. "Come with me. We're going to test out some new equipment."

Damian caught a glimpse of Dick, who actually looked disappointed that Damian was being dragged away, even though they were just talking nonsense. After Damian had followed Bruce a bit, Bruce finally spoke up.

"I'm glad you two are talking."

Damian's first reaction was to get defensive—but the whole point of being nice to Dick was to get his father's attention. To prove that he was capable of following instructions and working with others. This was the reaction he had been waiting for.

"We have to work as a team," Damian said simply. Bruce nodded, seeming pleased with his answer.

"He's a good kid," Bruce said. It was a short, almost terse, compliment—but it was a compliment nonetheless. Damian raised an eyebrow, his expression dry. "Things may be difficult now—but he'll grow on you. He has a lot of heart."

Damian doubted his father's words. It seemed more like his father was talking about himself rather than considering how poorly Damian got along with others.

They were going over a new prototype when Alfred quickly approached them, practically running from the other side of the room. Bruce and Damian immediately put down the prototype, giving the butler their full attention.

"Sirs, there is an important matter going on in city hall. It appears the building has been taken hostage."

"When are they going to increase their security?" Damian said, wondering out loud. A similar situation had happened back when Damian was twelve… and once again when he was sixteen… some things never changed.

Bruce frowned deeply. Damian could sense his concern—they were supposed to be starting small. They still couldn't operate their missions properly. He looked at Damian, deep thought in his eyes.

"Do you think you can do it? Properly?" Bruce asked.

Damian wasn't going to be sent on a city-saving mission just because he was the _only_ option. His father would never resort to that. But the way he was _asking_ him seemed to betray a small level of trust.

Damian nodded once. "Yes. I'll get dressed."

Dick had arrived to the congregation late. "What's going on?" he asked, glancing back and forth between them.

"There's a hostage situation in city hall. Suit up," Bruce told him.

There was some conflict in Dick's eyes—he didn't seem afraid, just uncertain. Almost insecure. "That seems really important. I don't want to get in the way."

Bruce's eyes faded a little, the realization sinking in. The adults all looked at each other, in a way of understanding. It was a dangerous mission. Perhaps too dangerous for a minor. This was Dick—not Damian, who had his life threatened multiple times back when he was a League of Assassins disciple and could afford to go on scarier missions as a child.

"Perhaps Master Damian should go alone this time around," Pennyworth suggested, in a tone that was almost cautious. Even so, there was a noticeable shift in Dick's mood. His eyes had fallen to the ground.

Bruce didn't say anything but he was considering the thought. He seemed to agree. Damian's heart began to thump a little—he was probably going to regret the decision, but he spoke up anyways.

"He should come with. I'll need the backup."

The last thing Damian wanted was backup. Indeed, everyone seemed to look at him in surprise. Damian looked directly into his father's eyes. Bruce seemed mixed—underneath the shock was the face of a man who wanted to be proud but was too cautious of it.

"Alright," Bruce said. "Alfred and I will keep surveillance on the cameras to instruct you through it. Be careful."

Even though Dick had been the doubtful one, he was the first one to finish getting changed.

They drove directly to city hall, where GCPD and the media stood outside. Damian, from a distance, spotted Commissioner Gordon—it was his first time seeing the commissioner since his return to Gotham. His hairline was receding and his facial hair had wisps of grey.

Damian didn't stare for long—he and Dick quickly snuck past the police lines and into an open window on the second story. As planned, Damian released a bat-droid as soon as they stepped inside. It was tiny, not visible from a distance, with a camera attached. The Cave controlled the droid, getting vision over the inside of city hall.

"I'm picking up police feedback. They're speaking to the armed gunmen. There's several of them," Pennyworth advised.

"They're in the lobby," Bruce said. "I'll keep scouting to see if there are any others elsewhere. Stay put and stay quiet."

Damian turned on the scanner on his bracer, which tracked heat signatures in any given area. It was just him and Dick. After a moment, Bruce spoke again.

"There's some men guarding the outside of the mayor's office. I can't get any closer without risking being seen, I'm not sure how many there are. But they most likely have the mayor with them. The guards also appear to have radios."

Damian felt frustrated. They had two groups of hostages but he and Dick still couldn't afford to split up.

"So who do we choose to let live?" Damian said into the commlink, an edge to his voice. He was being sarcastic. Mostly. "The mayor or the group of hostages in the lobby?"

"Focus on the lobby first. Your highground advantage will let you take them out quickly and efficiently. If you can take out their radios first, then they'll have no way of contacting the mayor's office. However—the gunfire will most definitely alert them. Take out the radio signal, take away their guns, then take them out."

Damian headed toward the main staircase, staying concealed behind the railing. On the ground below were the gunmen circled around some hostages. There were four of them. Standing by the doors were another two.

Damian reached into his belt, pulling out a small device. He set up the radio jammer, disrupting the audio. Many of the guards were unmoving, though one of them did glance down at his belt—likely hearing static.

All of the men were armed and two of them were at a safe distance.

"We'll smoke the group," Damian decided, speaking in a low voice. "Disarm and tranq the two in the back, then take out the rest of them."

"That seems too risky. What if we don't make it back before the smoke clears up?" Dick asked.

"It's the only solution I can think of. We can't take all six of them at once. Be ready. I'm going to throw the bomb, you're going to tranq the one on the right. I'll get the left. Then we'll have to get down there, quick."

Dick breathed in. There was something subtle about it. Damian had been trained to sense the fear in a person—and while he may not have understood people and the things that made them afraid, he did recognize the shakiness in Dick's breathing, the tension in his form.

Damian had limited experience in giving positive reinforcement, if he had any. He almost wanted to leave Dick right there and handle the situation on his own. But despite Dick's fear, he wasn't running. He sat there, side by side with Damian, listening to his plan.

If this was going to work, Damian had to say something.

"I need you to do this," Damian said. Simple, perhaps too blunt, words. Dick looked up at him. Damian pushed himself, adding, "I can't do this without your help."

Dick looked at him for a moment. Damian sensed the wariness in his eyes. But whether or not he believed Damian, he nodded slightly, saying, "One-two-go."

Damian nodded in agreement, grabbing the smoke bomb from his belt. They both readied themselves.

"One. Two. Go."

* * *

Dick's mood had considerably changed. The boy's enthusiasm seemed to skyrocket. Damian didn't bother disparaging him. In truth, his mind was practically floating. After shaking hands with the commissioner and the mayor, it felt like nothing could bring him down.

"I feel invincible," Dick said, beaming. Damian tugged on his cape when he started wandering in the wrong direction. The batmobile was the other way. But Dick didn't skip a beat, turning on his heel and hurrying to walk by Damian's side. "What did the Cave say?"

"'Nice work'," Damian repeated, his father's words echoing in his mind.

"It was more than 'nice'," Dick said, grinning. He added, "Did you see all of those cameras? I think those _Gotham Gazette_ reporters took photos of you."

" _Tt_. Great," Damian said sarcastically. Dick's head tilted to the side.

"Is that a bad thing? At the Cave, they said Gotham might not like the new Batman. But if those journalists talk about how you saved lives, maybe Gotham won't be so afraid of you."

"They're supposed to be afraid of me," Damian said, taking off. Dick followed him.

Behind him, he could hear Dick ask, "Is it easier if people are afraid of you?"

Damian pretended he didn't hear him.

* * *

Bruce didn't say anything when they returned—but Damian could feel it. His father was pleased that they made it back, together, in what was their first successful mission together. They had taken a leap forward.

Over time, Damian started to slowly venture out of his room, his territory making its way outside of the bedroom and the Cave that he had confined himself in. He started to explore other parts of the house more openly. He wasn't reluctant to eat in the dining room and kitchen or visit the library or walk in the garden—although he still managed to time it when no one else was around.

Damian was passing through the parlor when he heard faint music—followed by little beeps and sound effects. He circled around the couch, peeking over, and was startled when a face looked back up at him. Dick was laying on the couch upside down, one leg propped up on the back of the couch, his head hanging off of the seat with his hair splayed out in different directions.

Damian sighed a little. He didn't even know why he was surprised.

Dick put down the video game in his lap long enough to look at him. "What?"

Damian glanced down at the screen, suspicions confirmed. It was a game he played as a kid but it must have been re-released for this newer system. He was pleased to see the graphics and music remained the same as what he remembered.

"Do you wanna try?" Dick said, noticing Damian looking at it. Damian did but he felt too old. The system was all shiny and thin, unlike the brick he used to play on. Dick handed it to him without waiting for an answer, poking it against his hand.

Damian sighed a little and took it. Dick sat up properly on the couch, hovering over Damian's arm so he could watch the screen.

"Don't look with your face," Damian said, grumbling, when Dick's head blocked his view. Dick backed up a little. Damian restarted the level. The buttons were the same but the wide console design felt odd in his hands.

The little knight ran across the screen, in a level that Damian recognized. He hopped over obstacles and swung his sword at enemies. The knight ran to a treasure chest.

"If you open that, it'll change your weapon," Dick said, in what sounded like a warning.

"I know," Damian said, opening the chest and grabbing the bow and arrow.

"The sword does more damage," Dick said, frowning.

"The arrows are quicker," Damian said. The little knight hopped throughout the castle, rapid-firing arrows at enemies that exploded in pixelated messes. Damian scrolled through the level and got to the boss, hopping around the room and firing arrows, jumping out of the way whenever the boss attacked. The health bar slowly chipped away until the gargoyle finally gave an electronic scream, the screen flashing as it died.

"How'd you do that?" Dick asked, taking back the game. He looked at it as if Damian had unlocked the secrets to the universe.

"I've played it before—when I was young."

"I didn't think you played games."

Damian raised an eyebrow, not sure if he should be slighted by the comment. "What do you think I did in my spare time?"

"I dunno. Sulked?" Dick said. Damian's expression soured. _Brat_. Dick just tilted his head back on couch, looking up at Damian. His grin was all teeth.

Damian left Dick on the couch and continued with what he was doing—but he heard the couch squeak, followed by light footsteps.

"What are you doing?" Damian asked without looking back, even though he already knew the answer. Dick was following him simply for the sake of wanting to follow him.

"What are _you_ doing?" Dick asked.

"Sulking."

Dick kept following him anyways, into the back hallway. They passed the long line of Wayne family portraits. Dick raced ahead of him, stopping at the portrait of Alan Wayne.

"Is it weird knowing that you're related to all these guys?" Dick asked. "I don't even know who my great grandparents are. My grandpa was adopted by the circus." Dick didn't wait for an answer, he was already speeding down the line of portraits, looking at them all. He stopped at Solomon Wayne, laughing. "You should grow facial hair like that."

Damian rolled his eyes. Dick's immaturity was showing.

"Be respectful," Damian said. Although, as a child, he had said similar things. He finally stopped at a door, opening it up. It led into the storage room. Pennyworth managed to keep it remarkably organized and cleaned—though it was still teeming with junk. Damian carefully walked through the aisles of shelves, passing tons of boxes and big antiques. He finally came across a box with his name on it.

It was a little heavy, even for him. He plucked it off the shelf, growled in annoyance so Dick would get out of his way, and set it down. He opened it up, going through it—reuniting with all of the things he had to abandon when he left five years ago.

Dick watched as Damian dug through the items. Dick's eyes suddenly lit up, grabbing a case from the box.

"Hey!" he said, showing Damian the cover. It was the game that they had just played, except in its original format.

Damian shrugged. "You already own it. It can probably be tossed or donated. I'm not even sure if I have the system."

Damian didn't bother to comment when Dick started digging through the box too—maybe he'd find what he was looking for. Suddenly, there was a familiar jingle—the single sound bringing an onslaught of flashbacks. Damian looked up at once, saw Dick reading the nametag off of a collar.

"Who's Titus?"

It wasn't what he was looking for. Still, "Set it aside."

Damian shuffled through, beginning to wonder if there was a second box with more of his stuff packed away—still, he couldn't recall having left much behind. Just as he was about to give up and look anyways, he noticed a small wooden box painted with arabesque designs. He immediately grabbed it. He spared the wooden box and Titus' collar and packaged up the rest of the things to put back on the shelf. Dick looked at the small wooden box but this time, he didn't go rifling through it without permission. He seemed to recognize its value. Damian grabbed the items and got up.

"What is it?" Dick asked, still following.

"Just a box," Damian said, brushing off the question. It wasn't really the box that was important, although he had owned it for a long time as well, it was what was inside the box. Damian was far from materialistic or sentimental but this particular item he had a softspot for. Dick seemed unsatisfied by the answer but he didn't push it.

"I don't think I've ever been in that room," Dick said. "Your house is really big."

Damian found that wording to be odd.

"I'd almost say it's your home more than mine."

"It's not my home," Dick said at once. "The road is my home."

Damian looked at him. Dick must have realized what he said only after he caught the look. He suddenly seemed embarrassed, almost ashamed.

"I mean, everyone has been really nice to me," he said, eyes darting to the side. He seemed worried, maybe because he almost sounded ungrateful. He seemed to want to explain himself. "I like the old cars that Alfred drives. I like how big everything is here and that I have my own room. I like going to a _real_ school and eating a dinner at an _actual_ table. But it's not—"he stopped himself, looking uncomfortable.

"It's like being stuck between two worlds," Damian said, thinking. Dick considered this for a moment.

"Yeah. It kind of is." Dick looked up at him with big, blue eyes. As if reading his mind, he asked, "Was it like that for you, when you first moved in with your dad?"

"Yes," Damian confessed. It wasn't something he had admitted to anyone before. Damian's brow furrowed a little—he felt a need to clarify himself. He said, "I was ready to give up my old life when I came here. I _wanted_ to give up my old life, despite what it meant to leave everything behind. But it was a difficult transition."

"I don't think I could have done it, if it had been me. I only came here because I didn't really have a choice," Dick said, shrugging a little. "But this place must have felt like home to you eventually—you did come back, after all."

Damian's gaze lowered a little. It was true. Those early, beginning days of living in the manor had been so difficult. The rules were different. The way people acted were different. It wasn't all bad—in other ways, the manor was easier, and over time, _everything_ became easier. He felt an acceptance, a love, inside of that manor that he had rarely, if ever, felt during his time in the stuffy League of Assassins with his mother.

Now he was back and it was like going through it all over again. This time, however, instead of trying to find something, _anything_ , that was better than his old life—he was now jaded, deciding things would never go back to the way they were.

"It'll start to feel like home for you too," Damian said, the words spilling out before he could think about it.

Dick was visibly surprised, not expecting to hear such kind words—even Damian began to feel embarrassed for what he had said. He didn't mean to sound so inviting. But Dick didn't comment on it, he just smiled—not in a mocking or teasing way, like on the couch, but in a way that he took Damian's words to heart. In a way that showed that Damian's words had comforted him, even filled him with happiness.

Damian couldn't remember the last time he had said anything supportive to anyone—he especially couldn't think of a time he had made someone smile, much less just through the use of words.

Damian didn't think he could create that reaction in anybody.

Sighing a little, he stopped, taking a moment to open up the box. Dick watched carefully as the latches were lifted. Damian showed it to him.

Inside the box were tiny figurines carved from ivory. Damian had it since he was an infant, a gift from the al Ghul bloodline. They were modelled after warriors and royalty and animals and mythological beings alike. He used to rearrange them on his bedside table every night. It was one of the few things that he took with him when he moved into Wayne Manor, but he had left it all behind when he made his travels.

"Why is there a hedgehog?" Dick asked right away.

Damian's face fell. In the box were warriors with scimitars and chariots and kings and lions and tigers and djinns, and all Dick could focus on was the stupid hedgehog.

"I don't know."

Dick looked at it, giggling a little. "It's cute."

Damian was starting to think that between this and the fruit bats, Dick thought everything was _cute_. Damian watched Dick as he stared at it fixedly and he sighed a little, saying, "Just take it."

* * *

It was a few weeks later that they came across their first death.

It wasn't anything that Batman and Robin had any control over. They were attending other matters when they got the signal. A woman had been taken hostage—but her capturer panicked when GCPD arrived and tossed her over the roof. Now she was dead and the killer was on the run.

Damian went to take a quick look at the body, talking to the police officers about the case. It was brief and quick—they needed to chase after the killer. When Damian was done, he turned and saw Dick looking at the body, face expressionless.

Damian watched him for a moment, briefly wondering if Dick had never seen a dead body before—but then he remembered that Dick had watched his parents fall to their deaths, and it suddenly made more sense.

Damian glanced at the woman once more, her neck twisted and blood surrounding her. Body completely still, motionless, like it was frozen in time. The police watched carefully, almost interfering, when Damian kneeled next to her. He looked at her eyes, still wide open, and closed them.

There was something noticeably different about Dick for the rest of the night. Something changed. He didn't say much, hardly said anything at all, even when they captured the man. But there wasn't a sadness to him—instead there was this quiet, subtle intensity.

It all bubbled up at the end of the night, when they finally returned to the Cave. Damian caught Dick and Bruce talking while he was taking off his equipment. Dick was still fully dressed in his uniform—he had went straight to Bruce. Damian eyed them suspiciously, watching Bruce as he listened to Dick quietly, a strained expression on his face.

Finally deciding he couldn't keep to himself any longer, Damian dared to move in closer, hearing the words better with every step.

"...it's been months now. I can't keep waiting—"Dick stopped when Damian approached them. Damian looked back and forth between them.

"Are you talking business without me?" was Damian's first assumption.

"It's not like that," Dick said, sounding irritated. Damian couldn't remember the last time Dick had spoken that way—he wasn't bothered, just looked at Dick curiously. Damian heard Bruce sigh a little.

"I think you two have been making great progress. But I'm not sure if you two are ready to start taking these big cases—it takes more time, more commitment, and it can be dangerous."

"We saved city hall—"Dick started to argue.

"That was different. It was an emergency situation," Bruce said a little more firmly.

"Every day we waste is just another day where a criminal will get away," Dick said, more insistently.

"You help people by going on patrol—that's not a _waste_. Remember what I told you: first and foremost, this is about helping people." Bruce seemed to be getting irritated himself. He shook his head. "I thought you understood that."

"I do—but you promised we would work on these cases," Dick said, sounding a little more desperate.

"I can't risk these cases getting ruined by a team that can't commit. It's a lot of work and effort to compile evidence and have it dropped halfway through." Bruce looked at Dick for a moment and added, "I understand what you're feeling right now. But trust me, the case can wait a little longer while you two collect your bearings."

There was something deeper to this conversation that Damian wasn't grasping. Still, he felt he had to interfere.

"How much longer?" Damian asked, in a voice that was almost challenging. "Will there ever be enough time for you?"

Bruce's anger began to surface, an emotion Damian always managed to ignite without fail. He flashed Damian a look. "Don't patronize me. You always want to charge in first and think second."

"Not true, I always analyze the situation. We just disagree on _when_ to charge in," Damian said at once. He continued, ignoring the look his father gave him, "What happened with city hall was an emergency—but you still _asked_ me if I wanted to do it. You could have forbidden it. When I told Richard to come with, you didn't object. You trust us, to some extent." Damian shrugged. "It's been long overdue—you've been out of commission for months. Those cases could run cold if we don't pick them up now. You can't expect me to believe that you're satisfied with them sitting around."

Damian and Dick both waited for Bruce's answer. Bruce was quiet, thinking. Bruce finally murmured, "I'll think about it. Get some rest."

Damian got ready for bed. On the bedside table, he had his ivory figures on display—save for the queen, who he kept locked inside the box. He was in the process of laying out the futon when he heard a faint creak at the door.

Damian paused, watching Alfred—the cat—enter his room. The cat approached him, laying on the carpet near him. Not too close, but close enough to reach. Damian looked at him, wondering if he should risk petting him or not—he could bite him or, worse, run away.

Damian held his breath and reached out, touching him. The soft fur greeted his fingertips. The cat blinked slowly, almost lazily, but did not hiss.

Damian set down the pillow he was holding, scooting in closer. He pet Alfred over the neck a few times, gauging his reaction. Alfred accepted it, so Damian began to pet him behind the ears, remembering the spot. Alfred rolled over, closing his eyes, encouraging him to continue. When Damian finally stopped, the cat looked up at him and gave a disgruntled meow.

Damian's face softened at the sound. He hadn't heard it in so long. He went back to petting him.

Moments later, Damian heard another noise. His eyes looked toward the ceiling. He heard it again.

Richard.

Damian felt conflicted for a moment. The last time he had gone up to the roof, it was just to see what was going on. Then he brought Dick back into his room, playing nice so he could gain his father's favor. Damian felt some responsibility to go up and check on him but he didn't want to get too close to the boy. Didn't want to get too close to anyone, not even his father or Pennyworth. Not again.

He continued to go to bed, abandoning the cat. The window was left untouched, even as the footsteps continued to wander aimlessly.

Damian pulled up the covers, deciding it'd be better to ignore it. Better to stay away.

* * *

"Hey, someone still has their Christmas lights up," Dick said, pointing.

Damian rolled his eyes. "Focus, Robin."

"It kind of reminds me of fireflies," Dick said, passing him.

"Let me guess: you have some bonus round trivia information about fruit bats eating fireflies."

"Fruit bats don't eat fireflies. They eat fruit, duh. Weren't you the one who said that?" Dick said, sounding more than amused. Damian didn't bother responding. He was too busy focusing on the coordinates Bruce had sent him. "I can't wait til it's summer, then I can see real fireflies... Hey, have you ever actually seen a fruit bat eat?"

"I can't recall," Damian said dryly. They came across a wide gap between the roofs. Damian stopped, briefly wondering if it was too wide, but Dick was already moving ahead of him—kicking off an adjacent wall to properly make it across. Damian followed after him.

"It's so funny. When they eat grapes, their faces get all stuffed up, and they look like this." Dick quickly glanced back at Damian, holding his breath and puffing his cheeks up to demonstrate. Damian would have chided him but in the end, Dick was still moving and keeping up. His silliness wasn't distracting him from doing his job.

Despite himself, Damian found himself curious about this bit of information, his heart skipping at the mental image that floated in his head. But he'd never let Dick have the satisfaction of knowing that he had any sort of interest in his stupid fruit bats.

" _Tt_. So that's why you're glued to the computer all of the time. How many fruit bat videos do you have favorited?"

"Just one. But I also saw a documentary on bats," Dick said. If he caught onto the teasing, it certainly didn't bother him. He added, "If you were a bat, you'd probably be a fruit bat."

"What?" It was such a strange comment, Damian wasn't sure where to begin.

"Fruit bats have a good sense of smell. You're constantly smelling things."

This was just getting weirder. "What proof do you have of this?"

"Well, you have an incense holder in your room and you always come downstairs when there are cinnamon rolls."

"The incense is for meditation. And you're the one who keeps asking for more cinnamon rolls—they're always in the house," Damian said.

"I guess," Dick said, in a tone that suggested that he didn't agree. As if he somehow had a better idea than Damian did about matters concerning his senses.

"Grapple down there," Damian said, pointing. Dick withdrew his grappling gun on command.

They swung down to the alleyway, continued their trek.

"I'm starting to wonder why you chose Robin as your moniker. Was Bat Kid too degrading?" Damian said.

"I like robins too. I like all animals that fly."

They hopped a fence that blocked their path.

"Was a robin really the best choice?" Damian said in a low voice, skeptical.

"Well, I picked it because of a song that my mom used to sing. I guess I could have picked something cooler. Like Owlet." After a moment, Dick made a small humming sound. "Although, owls eat bats, so I guess that wouldn't make sense. I dunno. I like Robin. What do you think?"

"Chicken Boy."

"Not funny," Dick muttered, actually sounding a little annoyed. Damian had to bite back his smirk.

Damian grabbed Dick and had them duck down behind a stack of empty cardboard boxes sitting in the alley, observing their targeted building.

Bruce had assigned them to this place on a specific task. Damian had no idea how closely this tied into their cases—but his suspicions began to rise when Bruce specifically instructed them to find out who the men were working for.

It had been a couple of days since Dick had confronted Bruce. Damian started to notice that the police signals that were being picked up were of the more dangerous variety. Bruce was letting them move forward, working on more serious assignments.

It had an effect on Damian's partnership with Dick. Dick proved he could handle himself in dire situations. Proved that he could keep up. Damian hardly thought about Dick when they were on patrol, which was a good thing. He wasn't constantly watching after him or worrying about where he was positioned, who he was fighting, how he was faring. It boosted his ability to work, knowing that Dick could handle himself, and their teamwork, confidence and success all increased as a result.

They were infiltrating a safehouse—some miscellaneous for-hire mobsters. He observed the inside of the building, finding no apparent firearms. _Easy_.

Damian broke through the lock, where they snuck in. The building only had one door in and out. Damian stopped, looking around the narrow corridor they were in, an idea formulating in his head.

Dick was going off without him, peeking his head around the corner. Damian resisted sighing and yanked him back. Damian knelt, whispering, "Do you know what a funnel is?"

"Obviously," Dick said at once. Then he looked at Damian, saw the box-shaped device he had withdrawn from his belt, and said, " _Oh_."

Dick quickly tugged up his boots before ducking around the corner. Damian waited patiently in the hallway. He could hear the mobsters talking casually amongst themselves for a few moments, their voices hushed by the distance.

Then suddenly, a loud crash. An uproar followed suit—a mix of startled yells and curses and a child's laughter somewhere in the mix. Furniture scooting across the ground, things falling to the ground in a clatter, footsteps stumbling around. Damian felt a dull crick in his neck—tilted his head to relieve it. Cleared his throat a little.

The noise grew louder and louder. Closer. Damian got on one knee to steady himself. A flash of red and green came around the corner, easily hopping over Damian's head. Damian felt the recoil as he unloaded the box, the net parachuting out at the group of mobsters. The tangle of bodies stumbled over each other, tripping around in the confined space.

"Come on," Damian said to Dick, hearing some noise in the other room still. They moved around the bodies and Damian just barely caught a body climbing through an open window.

They both took off after the runaway—but the man clearly didn't know where he was going, didn't realize what he was accidentally setting himself up for. They chased him towards the dead end.

The light in the alleyway was dim and flickering—still, it was apparent that there was no escape. The man tried to climb up the fence that blocked his path but Damian easily plucked him off of it.

"Don't worry," Dick said lightheartedly. "Blackgate looks a lot better than that dump you were working in. And I heard the cots are pretty nice."

"Don't be patronizing, Robin," Damian said, because someone had to act professional.

The man had given up on fighting—he managed to twist far enough in Damian's hold to look up at him. Damian looked at him at the same time, both facing each other fully.

The man suddenly jerked away—not in a way that was violent, but in a way that he was almost afraid. Damian wasn't expecting it—the man managed to pull out of his grip, but it was clumsy. He stumbled backwards.

Damian didn't rush forward. The man seemed too afraid to run. He simply just crawled back on his hands.

Damian's brow furrowed, confused by this man's seemingly delusional behavior.

"Uh," Dick started, clearly noticing it too. He moved in a little closer, to Damian's side.

"I've seen you," the man finally sputtered out, eyes widening. "I recognize you. You're not Batman. You're that guy."

Damian stared.

The fear grew in the man's face. Somewhere in those wide eyes, the man was lost. His voice shook as he said, "I was there. I was there."

The man's arm drew closer to cover his face, the horror setting in. Damian's gaze settled on the man's wrist, seeing the tattoo of a black spade. And he finally understood.

Damian's eyes narrowed, a cold feeling washing over him. A sound echoed in the back of his head, from a different time. A sound almost like laughter.

"Batman?" Dick asked quietly, looking up at him. He had witnessed the silence, no doubt sensing the tension in the air, but Damian paid him no mind.

Damian paused for a moment and tried to compose himself. But just looking at this man was tearing apart every wall he tried to build, unleashing a deep rage inside of him that he thought he had forgotten.

That he wished he had forgotten.

"Yeah. It's me," Damian said. He stepped forward. "So let me ask you this: why are _you_ still here? After all of these years? Why are you still running around on the streets, spreading _crime_?"

The man immediately crawled back, keeping the distance between them. He shook his head. "No. This isn't right. You were gone. I told people but no one believed you were real—they said _he_ planned it, because he was _crazy_ , but I _saw_ —"

The man stopped, swallowing. He changed his words.

"It was a mistake. I'm sorry. If I had known—"

"If you had known _what_?" Damian hissed, the anger poking out. " _Say_ _it_. Say how you'd still be robbing and harassing people, _killing_ innocent people and working for _monsters_ , if you hadn't known that I'd be watching you."

The man's fear, for a moment, was gone. He looked at Damian, a sudden assuredness in his eyes, "Monsters. Maybe. But I'm not like you. You're a demon."

Maybe, Damian realized, he was right.

Damian stormed forward, picked the man up forcefully by his collar. Now the man was fighting back, trying to punch at Damian but the layers of kevlar protected him from feeling the comparatively weak blow.

Still. The punch only fuelled his sudden rage.

His grip on the man tightened. He forced him into the fence. It should have been enough to subdue him but the man was afraid, irrational. He yelled and cursed and tried to get out of Damian's hold.

"All these years—"Damian started with a growl. He paused long enough to get a punch in, the blow striking the man across the face.

"—all these goddamned, fucking years—"

His trained eloquence was gone. Words sputtered out, heated and hissing. The man raised his hands to his bleeding face. Damian aimed low instead, getting him in the gut.

"—and this forsaken city hasn't changed one fucking bit—"

The man was crumpling. It was enough. It was enough to take him down. But Damian didn't stop. He kneed him in the face while he was stooped over. There was a splatter of blood.

"What's it going to take?!"

Damian picked him up just to toss him again. But when he hit the fence, he didn't fight back. He just fell over.

Damian reached over to grab him. He took him by the collar.

"I thought _I_ was the problem—I left and gave up _everything_ , but you—people like _you_ —"

The man was turned over, his head rolling back almost lifelessly.

Damian finally stopped, looking into the bloodied face, barely breathing. He couldn't.

He couldn't.

Damian let go, the man's barely conscious body falling to the ground. Damian felt shaky, the adrenaline still rushing through his body, his heart beating unbearably fast. He stepped away, the puddle of blood sliding underneath his boots.

He had to call GCPD. He had to call them and leave. He was done.

His hand moved toward the cowl, to adjust the settings and radio the police. His mind was racing but he called them anyways. When it was all done and over, he moved to turn back around, but stopped when he suddenly remembered who would be waiting for him when he did.

A sudden heaviness fell over him. He could feel the pulse of his heart, thunderous, beginning to normalize. He exhaled lightly, willing himself through it, and turned around.

Dick wasn't looking at him. His body was turned ever so slightly away. His eyes were glued to the ground. Damian couldn't tell—couldn't tell if he was afraid, or worse, disappointed.

Damian didn't know what to say. _I'm not like this. I'm not who he says I was. I'm not a demon_.

But that would have been a lie.

It was all a lie.

* * *

When they returned to the Cave, Dick didn't say anything to Damian. He answered Pennyworth's usual questions casually enough that it didn't raise eyebrows, but Damian noticed his reluctance to smile, and how quickly he had gotten out of uniform and hurried to the manor.

Damian stood by the equipment table, removing his items. As he did, he noticed the linked handcuffs on the wall—the same pair that his father had tricked him and Dick into wearing on their first obstacle course together.

He remembered how when Dick had stumbled, Damian was jerked around too. He remembered how when they were crossing the river on the rocks, Damian had jumped too early and they had both fallen into the river.

He remembered how Dick had told them that they had to stick together and Damian ignored him, followed by Dick's blood on his shirt.

He stared at the cuffs, remembering how he and Dick had been forced to work together, and how those links had dictated their actions. Their teamwork. That neither one could succeed without the cooperation of the other. How Damian had tried to force that cooperation and it ended with Dick's blood.

Nothing was tying Dick to him now, except maybe a mask.

Damian's eyes lowered a little. He had to say something.

Bruce listened carefully as Damian recounted the story, taking in the information of what his cameras hadn't been able to pick up on. Damian couldn't read his father's expression, had no way of knowing how furious he was as he confessed about how he beat the perp, beat him until he was bloody and unmoving.

"Did you stop?" Bruce asked when Damian was finished.

"Yes, but—"

"Let me clarify: I want to know if _you_ stopped," Bruce said, leaning forward. He looked him in the eye. "I want to know if you stopped _yourself_."

"Yes," Damian said. Bruce sat back in his chair, eyes lost in thought. "No one else did it. Dick, he—"

Damian stopped, not sure how to describe it. He wasn't looking at Dick when he did what he did. He had no way of knowing how the boy reacted to watching him beat a man out of anger, to the point of unconsciousness.

"This behavior. I don't know if I can allow it," Bruce said, frowning. "That man isn't dead and you did stop yourself, of your own volition, but I still can't trust in that. We _catch_ criminals, Damian. We don't punish them. We always hand things over to the law first."

"I know," Damian said. He couldn't bring himself to argue. His father was right and the guilt was beginning to settle in besides. He had never been happy, not even as a child, but it had been a long time since he had felt _that_ angry. He had hoped that he had rid himself of it.

"There's a couple reasons why I let you take over the cowl—most of which were for selfish purposes, I admit. I needed eyes out in the city. I needed someone to solve my cases. But there is a specific reason why I wanted you to work with Dick," Bruce said. He frowned a little, continuing, "I needed to know if you still had empathy inside of you. I needed to know that when you were out there, whether it was taking a bullet to save a life, or losing self-control when fighting an enemy, that you'd remember that you had someone there, side by side with you, _watching_ you. But my main reason for doing it wasn't to control you. I wanted that _for_ you, the same way I had it for me."

Bruce's eyes shifted to the side, going somewhere distant. Mind lost somewhere. He continued, "I know I had an awful way of showing it, but when you came to live with me, _work_ with me, you brought out a better part of myself. I was reckless, selfish, before I met you. That cowl isn't meant to be carried alone. It takes you someplace dark, as you already know. I thought by giving you a partner…"

Bruce trailed off, his brow furrowing a little. He clenched his mouth shut. He had gone over his word quota, it seemed.

Damian's gaze lowered a little. His father never spoke to him that way.

"I won't take the cowl away from you. Though, if it happens again, that will have to change. Consider this your last chance," Bruce decided. Damian wasn't sure if he should be relieved. Bruce looked at Damian one final time before returning to the computers. "Just remember that next time when you're out there, when you lose control, he _sees_ you like that. You and I will never be good role models, but we need to at least try to be better than ourselves."

* * *

Damian stopped to catch his breath, staring down the punching bag. His heart wasn't in it. He was losing track of time. Losing his concentration. It felt like with every strike, he was doing something he wasn't supposed to. He thought about his training routine, thought about the places where he learned to fight—places that taught how to win, even if it meant killing, and it bothered Damian in a way that it hadn't before.

"Could you teach me?"

Damian glanced out of the corner of his eye. He had been so distracted by his thoughts that he hadn't seen Dick enter. Damian glanced at the clock on the wall—Dick was down there, early. He lingered near the doorway, as if unsure whether or not he was welcome in Damian's presence.

Damian didn't answer right away. Went to rebandaging his hands. Thinking.

"I know I asked you before, but I really want to learn what you know," Dick said, watching him.

"You should stick to my father's regimen. He has a better grasp of how to train you than I do. My training isn't suited for a child."

Dick grimaced a little at the word but didn't comment on it. He said, "But you grew up learning how to fight."

At that, Damian tensed a little.

"I mean, could you just show me a few things?" Dick asked, looking up at him. There was a lingering innocence there.

Damian suddenly felt defensive, something inside of his chest twisting. Something in the back of his mind telling him that Dick should leave, should run.

Damian gestured him to come over instead.

"Because of your stature, you should focus on hitting low—like Father taught you. You should continue learning how to evade enemies, using their size to throw them off balance. But there are some offensive moves you can do that can cause damage to adults."

Damian moved towards the punching bag—Dick moved to follow but Damian pushed him back, keeping him in place, at a distance. Damian stared down the punching bag. He imagined it as a person. He pointed, indicating to certain spots.

"The jaw has some of the most nerves in the human body. The correct strike can cause a black-out. At your height, you can't kick someone in the jaw while planted on the ground. But since the height of your jumps are well practiced..."

Damian demonstrated a jumping kick. The sound of impact was loud, reverberating in the room. Dick watched, nodding. Damian paused for a moment.

"But if you do it strong enough, you can cause permanent nerve damage to the jaw," Damian said.

As he spoke, his gaze faded. His mind was travelling elsewhere, remembering his teachings as a child. Remembering the same advice his mother, his grandfather, his mentors, had all given him. Just a kid, like Dick, who wanted to spend his spare time with video games and ivory hedgehogs, but was too focused on getting stronger. Getting better.

On proving himself. Proving his worth.

Damian looked up at Dick, who was still standing there. For once, Damian wondered. Wondered what Dick thought of when he looked at Damian.

Did he want to be his friend?

Did he want to be just like him?

The idea of it pissed him off.

"What you want to do, when you've perfected jumping that high, is striking the throat in the hopes that it will crush it, killing in an instant. Or you can strike the temple, stopping blood from getting to the brain. If they're down and still alive, you can stomp on their throat. Even with your weight, it should be enough."

Damian could sense the tension coming off of Dick when he turned to face him. His gaze was lowered. Damian kept going, unfiltered.

Damian gently placed a hand on Dick's shoulder, drawing his attention. Dick looked at him. Damian tapped Dick's temple.

"The same goes for children. For children, you don't have to do a jump kick. You can hit them in the temple, knock them down."

The hand slid from Dick's shoulder to his upper back, the other hand placed on Dick's chest, squeezing lightly. Compressing his chest. Dick breathed.

"What you really want to do, though, is strike the lungs," Damian explained. "Limit their ability to breathe. A child's lungs are small. So the most effective thing to do is crush them. When they're down on the ground, you can knee drop on their chest. If done right, the lungs should collapse."

When Damian let go, Dick still didn't release the breath he was holding. He suddenly touched his temple that Damian had indicated earlier. He was silent and breathless, the tips of his fingertips just barely touching his skin, and his gaze lowered. There was some thought behind his eyes, some distant emotion.

It was weird to see him stifling himself. And suddenly Damian was watching Dick's fingers pressed against his temple, and his mind was reeling back to another time, when he had placed lavender on that spot and kissed him.

But he doesn't think back on it with any feeling other than numbness.

Damian went on, lecturing almost monotonously, "If they're elderly, you can easily strike them in their knees. With enough force, you'll knock them down. If it's an infant, the back of the head is especially sensitive."

Dick didn't say anything. But he did look at Damian now, his expression less pensive. There was a deep layer of emotion in his eyes. Damian couldn't quite connect to it—but it felt maybe sympathetic, or perhaps he felt ashamed and embarrassed for asking.

"I didn't grow up learning how to fight, Richard. I didn't learn how to give people a chance to defend themselves, I only learned what was most efficient," Damian said, tearing his gaze away. "Resorting to fighting only meant that I had failed to complete my mission effectively. Stick to my father's training. He knows better."

Damian could admit that now.

His father's words echoed in his head:

 _That's why you can't do it. That's why you'll never be Batman_.

"Has it ever happened by accident?" Dick said suddenly, looking at Damian cautiously. He had this strange, expectant look in his eyes—like he was waiting for Damian to answer correctly.

Damian couldn't give him that.

"No," he said. "Never by accident."

Dick's brow furrowed a little. His face was deep in concentration, bothered by whatever mixed emotions he was experiencing.

"But it couldn't have been on purpose. You were just a kid—"

"You know, deep down, that's not true," Damian said, cutting him off. "It's how I was raised. I was proud of it."

"But—"Dick tried to argue but Damian cut him off with a single intimidating look. Dick's gaze fell, looking defeated. "I guess I just don't understand how anyone could want to do it."

"It wasn't about wanting to. It was about duty and loyalty to my mother, my grandfather, my organization—"

"And your father?" Dick asked, looking up.

Damian stared, stunned into silence. Dick looked at him in a way that made him feel almost exposed.

"I—"he started, but when he opened his mouth he froze. The words lost.

Dick suddenly surged forward, wrapping his arms around Damian. Damian leaned back, away from the hug, but Dick held on.

Damian felt almost embarrassed, heat rushing to his face, especially with the awkward positioning of Dick's head against his middle. He frowned, trying to untangle Dick's arms, doing anything to get out of this overly affectionate and touchy display, beginning to protest.

" _Richard_ —"he started, a low growl to his voice.

"You won't do it again."

Damian froze, speechless.

"You won't," Dick said, voice muffled against Damian's shirt. Arms squeezing tighter.

Suddenly Damian felt his stomach drop. A rare feeling rushed through him.

He was afraid.

He managed to pry Dick off of him. He didn't know what to say when Dick locked gazes with him. Didn't know what to think of Dick's gaze that watched him with concern—concern _for_ him.

Didn't know how to deal with the sudden dread of disappointing someone.

"I should go," Damian said, feeling foolish, and he took off in the direction of the manor.

* * *

Damian tried to focus on his breathing.

He inhaled through his nostrils, felt the air rush through him, felt the swell of his lungs. He slowly released, pushed out the air fully and completely.

He did this, over and over again, trying to lose his mind to the repetition. But then there'd be a flicker—a way that the air felt, or an awareness of a smell or sound, an imagined sensation on his skin, and his mind would suddenly start reeling backwards. Thoughts, memories, drowning him.

Damian forced his eyes open. He clenched his fists slightly, feeling frustrated. When he was gone, he could do it. At his training at the temples, he could completely lose his subconscious. He could drift into nothing. Feel nothing. But here, he just couldn't.

He gave up on meditating. He'd have to try it another day. But between the failures of his meditation and training, Damian wasn't sure what else he could do. He could feel his control slipping away and it worried him.

Perhaps the issue was that he shouldn't be there.

Perhaps the healthier thing, the nobler thing, would be to leave.

A sound at the door interrupted his thoughts. Damian got up to answer the door, let Pennyworth into his room. The butler carried with him a neat stack of folded clothes.

"Thank you, Pennyworth," Damian managed to say but his mind was all sorts of distracted.

"You're welcome, Master Damian. I promise it wasn't a trouble at all." Pennyworth set down the stack on top of the dresser but lingered in the room a moment longer, watching Damian. He considered Damian a moment, eyes shifting to the side. He adjusted his lapels and hesitantly said, "You know, Master Damian, I must say: it's been good to have you back."

Damian glanced at him, not sure what to say. He knew Alfred's affection was genuine—the years they had spent together had formed an undeniable bond, with the butler almost acting as a second father-figure. Alfred, who always knew the right thing to say or do. Alfred, who remained loyal and loving no matter what argument or harsh words were thrown at him.

Still, Damian wasn't sure how to feel about Alfred's words. He was certain that Alfred just missed him. In truth, their relationship just didn't feel the same since Damian returned, and he was sure that things around the manor must have been better when he was gone.

Pennyworth cleared his throat a little, adding in a tone that was a touch quieter, "I'm sure Master Bruce and Master Dick feel the same way."

Damian sighed a little, saying, "What did my father tell you?"

Pennyworth crossed his hands behind his back, thinking over his words carefully, before answering, "When you know someone long enough, you just start to pick up on things. But yes, Master Bruce talked to me. And Master Dick, for that matter. He thinks it's best if we remain cautious and watchful."

"I'm sure he wanted it to be a secret as well," Damian said, crossing his arms. He nodded toward Pennyworth. "So why are you telling me this?"

"Because I think it's important to be supportive as well," Alfred said. "Should you ever feel the need to talk, you can always come to me." Alfred turned to take off but stopped, looking at Damian once more. "You're a good person, Master Damian." There was a brief look of hesitation, a fear of saying too much, but he straightened his back and said, "Your guilt, I think, is proof of that."

* * *

Guilt didn't change what was already done.

Guilt wasn't enough to hold back the fear of what could be done.

Bruce had talked to Dick.

Damian wasn't supposed to know.

Damian wanted to know the exact words. He knew Dick would probably tell him, if he pushed hard enough. Lately, however, he felt he had dragged Dick far enough into his affairs.

For their case, they were examining an abandoned safehouse. It was a tall but narrow building, the ceilings high and pitch black in the dim lighting. A staircase leading up to a walkway overseeing the first floor. A basement that Damian uncovered access to.

They headed down the stairs, flashlights on their bracers.

"What exactly are we supposed to be looking for?" Dick asked as they headed down. He made a disgusted noise when he charged through a spiderweb.

"Just signs of what type of work they might have been doing. Who might have been here," Damian said.

In the basement, there was a table and some chairs. Nice, aside from the age. The safehouse must have been abandoned for years, judging by the dust. Damian looked around, finding some shelves—including a winerack.

"Fancy," Dick said, whistling, when he wiped away the dust on the chair to unveil the intricate designs.

Damian took note of this. There were meetings down here—but it wasn't just any gang. It was a gang with influence, power and class. There wasn't much else left in the room. They headed back upstairs. The ground floor had been stripped completely—the floors and walls barren. Dick and Damian moved up the staircase leading to the walkway, the metal steps noisy. Somewhere along the lines, Damian thought he sensed something.

He held out his hand, stopping Dick. Dick froze immediately.

They were silent for a moment. Dick glanced up at Damian, questioningly. Damian was starting to think he imagined it until he caught a flicker of something red on Dick's vest—a red that didn't match the fabric.

Damian didn't say a word, he just acted. He reached out, practically plucking Dick up, and ran for it. He heard the gunfire behind them, barely dodging it. Once they were behind a safe pillar, he looked Dick up and down to check on him.

"Are you alright?" Damian asked, even though he knew he was. He felt on-edge. That bullet hadn't been for Damian. It had been for Dick—and that realization had Damian's heart racing.

"Where did that come from?" Dick said, ignoring the question. More focused on the mission.

Damian stopped and looked around, adjusting the lenses on his cowl. Eyes scanning carefully. There was another walkway, another story up. He caught some movement in the shadows.

He quickly reacted, throwing a batarang. He moved Dick in time before the gun could fire at them. However, there was a sudden loud crack—the batarang Damian had thrown had detonated a second later. A low grade explosion, nothing that would be lethal. Damian waited for another shot. It didn't come—still, Damian was cautious, adjusting the bulletproof jacket.

"Stay out of range," Damian said. He grabbed the grappling gun off his belt.

He moved quick, shooting himself up to the higher level. He caught the gleam of the gun but pounced in time, removing the weapon.

Whoever the man was, he was trained. Aside from the fancy firearms, the blows they exchanged were practiced. Even the man's breathing seemed to be controlled, purposefully silent, and while Damian wasn't sure of the man's abilities, he didn't appear to be bothered by the darkness in which they fought.

Damian was confident in his abilities—but the man was still difficult. When Damian finally got a hold of him, the man suddenly backed up—knocking him into the wall. Damian's hold loosened just enough for the man to get the advantage, a punch landing across his temple. The reinforced cowl helped lessen the blow but still, Damian was momentarily staggered. Several additional hits landed—and Damian realized, a second late, that the man's gloves must have been reinforced to hit harder. A particularly bruising blow staggered him to his knees. Damian braced himself through the onslaught, biding his time for the opening.

The man reached towards his belt when suddenly, he was yanked backwards. It was difficult to make it out, even with his lenses, but Damian could see the familiar form climbed on top of the gunman. Dick flipped the man over.

Damian didn't trust their opponent still. He yanked Dick out of the way, putting himself between him and the assassin.

The man didn't move. Damian cautiously made his way forward. There was a flicker of movement.

"Watch out—"Dick started but Damian had reacted in time.

Damian caught the gleam of metal—he blocked the swinging dagger, the metal biting through the glove into his hand. Damian hissed but easily knocked the man's hand against the nearby railing, knocking the knife out. It clattered to the ground.

Damian ignored the blood dripping from his hand. He exchanged blows with the mercenary—having the clear advantage. As he delivered each of his hits successfully, an anger began to build up inside of him. He knew the man's strategy. He wanted to kill Robin first, to throw off Batman. He knew because this was a strategy he would have used.

It enraged him that he knew this. It enraged him that it would have worked.

Enraged him that someone would send an assassin on a boy.

But not just any boy.

Damian felt a swell of rage, thinking about it. He rushed forward, grabbing the man. He struck him against the jaw, not caring how hard he hit. The mercenary stumbled instantaneously, falling down. Without thinking twice, Damian picked up the fallen dagger in an almost graceful movement, poising to to strike again.

"Wait—"

Damian wasn't prepared for Dick grabbing onto his hand, jerked away from the touch out of instinct. Dick immediately recoiled, cut by the knife. Damian didn't have time to think about it—the mercenary took the momentary opening, striking.

Damian was knocked back a step, felt a pair of hands on him. Wringing around his neck. Damian tried to knock him off, ramming him into the railing, felt the hands digging into his throat. Tried to pry but the hands only seemed to clamp down tighter and tighter. He settled for jabbing his attacker but the mercenary would not concede. In the midst of their scramble, Damian caught a glimpse of Dick. Panic crept up, not wanting Dick to interfere. Then there was determination—determination to fight a way out without risking Dick.

But he should have known better.

Of course Dick was going to get involved.

Dick struck at the man's knees, both of them fighting now to get the man to let go. The assassin finally did—but only to kick Dick hard, the hit landing his gut, a blow that instantly crumpled him to his knees.

Damian saw red. He swung back his arm, hard, not holding back. He hit the enemy at full force, the strike sending the man stumbling backwards, falling over the railing. Damian turned quickly to grab him but just barely missed, the assassin falling down two stories and Damian without his grappling gun in hand to go after him.

He quickly slid over to Dick. Dick didn't react as Damian quickly placed his hands over Dick's ears.

The sound of impact reverberated throughout the building as the body smacked against the ground. What followed were Dick's shallow breaths. Damian removed his hands, lifted Dick's face. Dick just pulled back, shaking his head to himself.

"That really hurt," he said, trying to force a laugh, but he was visibly in pain. He muttered, sounding almost out of breath, "Mammoth feet. I swear."

Despite himself, he found Dick's humor to be a little contagious. He made a single, amused sound.

" _Tt_. Of course it hurt," Damian said. "He was three times your size."

"Hey, I'm not that short. I'd say it's more like, twice."

"You wouldn't have gotten hurt if you stayed put like I told you to," Damian said. It had an unexpected effect—instead of arguing back, Dick lowered his head. Damian shifted in place, wondering if he had been too harsh. Wondering when he started caring about what tone he spoke to Dick in, for that matter.

"I'm sorry," Dick murmured, sounding almost guilty.

"This isn't your fault," Damian said. "He caught us both offguard."

"He's not going to be happy," Dick said. There was no need to specify who. Still, Dick looked up at Damian. "He told me that you can't do anything like that. He told me he'd take the cowl back."

"I know," Damian said. "I already talked to him."

"You could just tell him it was me," Dick said. When he saw Damian's hard stare, he quickly added, "I mean, I'm to blame too. You said it yourself, that I should have stayed put—"

"No, Robin—"Damian started, feeling frustrated, but he stopped when Dick eyed him sullenly. Damian sighed exasperatedly, changing his tone, but still saying what he need to say, "I took it too far. That's what happened."

"But—"

"Enough. I need to go check on the body."

Damian grabbed the grappling gun off the floor. He and Dick both made it down to the ground level, where Damian moved to check on the body. This time, Dick listened when Damian told him to stay behind.

The man was in a puddle of his own blood—but when Damian bent down, he saw the body was moving. He was breathing—though from the angle his legs were twisted, Damian doubted that was much of a relief. If the man recovered, he'd be heavily paralyzed. Still, Damian felt some relief that it was not fatal. He called for an ambulance.

At the sight of the blood, Damian suddenly remembered something. He waited until they were out of the building before checking. He grabbed Dick's hand—the boy didn't protest. The hand had bled quite a bit but seemed to have stopped. Damian stared at it, knowing it had been caused by the blade he had wielded in his hand. The cut was deep—red and angry. Damian touched it before Dick could object, testing it. Dick winced in pain. Damian looked down a moment longer.

The blood stained the fabric of his glove. It looked all too familiar.

"I'm sorry," Damian said. Dick glanced up at him but looked back down at his hand.

"I know you didn't mean to. It was just an accident, and that wasn't the right way for me to step in, so…" Dick shrugged.

Damian frowned, a heaviness in his chest. He didn't understand why Dick kept making excuses for him. Damian could have just left his apology at that. But he needed to confess.

"That day we argued. When you ran away. I blamed you for what happened to my father." Damian frowned, the guilt slowly beginning to rise. "It wasn't true. I didn't know the story. I'm sorry."

Dick stopped and looked at him. He had a serious look in his eyes, likely remembering what had happened. Damian frowned a little, understanding that being sorry wasn't going to take back what he said. What he did. But then suddenly Dick spoke up.

"Everyone makes mistakes. Apology accepted," he said simply. He paused for a moment, looking at Damian's hands. He turned one of them, looking at it. Damian wasn't sure what he was doing but he didn't yell at him. He simply watched Dick. Suddenly, Dick smiled. "We match."

It took Damian a second to remember that he had his hand sliced as well. He glanced at his palm, noticing the direction of the cut was similar to Dick's, and that they both had gotten their right hands hurt. Though, his was nowhere near as deep as Dick's. He looked back at Dick, who was smiling and holding his hand up for comparison.

Damian slowly shook his head—but without any bit of negativity he murmured, "You're so strange."

They wrapped up Dick's hand and waited for the man to be taken away by the emergency vehicles. Their mission for the night was done. Damian was unsure of whether or not they should continue patrolling or return to the Cave. After what had just happened, Damian wasn't sure how he was going to relay everything to his father. His pending termination was all a matter of time.

Dick seemed to decide for him, heading for the rooftops. Damian chased him but not in a hurry.

"We should probably go back," Damian said.

"We have to finish patrol first," Dick insisted.

For a little while, they stayed perched on a roof. Dick immediately sat on the edge of the skyscraper, his legs dangling off the edge, as he always did. After a bit of silence, he finally broke the ice.

"What do you think he's going to say?" he asked quietly. Damian didn't need him to specify who.

"I don't know," Damian said with a tone of finality. With his last chance spent, a thought suddenly occurred to him that this might be his last night with Dick.

"Do being on top of buildings ever make you feel super tall?" Dick asked him suddenly. Damian glanced down at him. Dick gestured out to the city. "Sometimes, when we're up really high like this, all of the buildings down there look fake. Like they're toys or something."

"What would you do if you actually were that tall?"

"I dunno. I guess I'd have to make a giant house first, in case it rained or snowed," Dick said, thinking. Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. "I could make a giant snowball!"

Damian eyed him skeptically. "If you threw it, it'd probably demolish a city."

"Like Godzilla."

" _Tt_. Now you're just being silly."

"What would you do?" Dick asked, ignoring the comment.

"I'd probably be Godzilla." It was a joke but the idea of destroying everything, becoming a monster, felt too close to reality.

"Don't steal my ideas," Dick said. His voice sounded like a whine but the corner of his mouth was still quirked up.

" _Tt_. It's not as if I actually can."

"Yeah. But it's kind of nice, right?" Dick said, swinging his feet. He hummed a little. "Pretending like this."

 _Right_ , Damian remembered.

Pretending.

"Richard," Damian said suddenly. Dick stopped and looked at him, surprised. His legs stilled.

Damian kneeled next to him.

"What's wrong?" Dick said at once, catching on. His voice a touch quieter.

"That night when I found you on the roof…" Damian started, but stopped. Dick looked up at him, a curious look in his eyes. He knew what Damian was talking about, of course he did. But there was a tenderness to his eyes too, something almost fragile. Insecure, especially for a boy who acted so loud and confident. Damian hesitated for a moment, knowing he was about to crush that esteem. "I was only nice to you because I wanted you to work with me."

Dick looked at him, frowning a little. For once, he didn't say anything.

Damian went on, talking almost monotonously, "And another thing—that moment when I kissed your head, that didn't mean what you thought it meant. It didn't mean anything. I was just trying to gain your loyalty."

"You're just saying that to scare me away," Dick said, shrugging a little.

"My father said that I needed to work with you in order to stay as Batman. That's what this has been about: being Batman. Gaining your trust was necessary."

"So why are you saying this?" Dick said, frustrated. He crossed his arms, scowling. He seemed flustered, in an almost immature way. He seemed to be seconds from covering his ears and making loud noises so he couldn't hear Damian speak. "If you _are_ telling me the truth, then that means you care enough to be honest with me. Right?"

He waited for Damian's answer. When it didn't come, Damian could see the uncertainty in his expression crawl back up. Damian considered dropping the conversation, taking all of his words back.

"I needed this cowl," was all Damian could say.

"You tricked me," Dick said, leaning back. For once, he didn't yell. His gaze just lowered, looking hurt. Disappointed.

Damian recognized the look a little too well. His gaze lowered, briefly thinking of his father.

"We need to return to the Cave," Damian said.

He didn't dare to call it home.

* * *

Alfred saw Dick's shoddily bandaged hand almost straight away. He instantly went to cleaning it. Meanwhile, Damian removed the cowl, looking at it. When his father walked up to him, Damian immediately shoved the cowl towards him.

Bruce didn't take it, just looked down at it for a moment.

"What's this?" he asked, looking back up at Damian. For once, he seemed perplexed.

"You were right," Damian said. He poked Bruce's hand with it, insistently. "I can't do it."

"You're quitting?" a small voice asked.

Damian didn't dare to look at Dick. His father's eyes on him were already more than he could handle. Bruce regarded him for a moment before finally, almost gently, taking the cowl away.

"If this is what you want, I can't stop you."

Want? _No_.

It was what had to be done.

No amount of people he saved would compare to the damage he had done.

"I'll be leaving tomorrow," Damian said. The sooner he cut off ties, the easier, and he decided he'd rather spend his life running than risking going down the path he was so afraid of.

"No, you're not," Dick said insistently. Alfred moved to pull him back but Dick forced his way between Damian and Bruce. Dick didn't give Damian a choice not to look. Damian simply steeled himself, meeting Dick's desperation with a stony-eyed gaze. A bit quieter, Dick said again, "I'm not mad at you. I'm not."

He still didn't understand.

He didn't understand that he should never have to say those words.

"Dick," Bruce finally interceded. He paused for a moment, looking almost sympathetic. "It'll take some time but I promise I'll get back on my feet. We'll pick up those cases again—"

"That's not it!" Dick said, cutting him off. Dick's face scrunched up a little, looking torn and frustrated. But after a moment of thought, he sighed, finally saying, "It's not about the cases. That's all in the past. It's the other things. Like playing knights and making fun of Alfred and showing me all of your stuff. Who am I going to talk to in the training room? Who's going to show me the manor?"

"This doesn't concern you," Damian finally snapped. Dick clenched his jaw at the accusation, the tenderness in his eyes breaking. Fire in his eyes.

"Of course it concerns me! I'm in this as much as either of you!" When no one responded, Dick suddenly turned towards Bruce. "Say something already!"

Damian couldn't help but glance up at Bruce, expectantly. But the man simply stood there, looking uncomfortable.

Dick made a frustrated sound and took off, shoulder bumping into Damian on the way out. Damian watched him go. It wasn't the first time he had seen him run off but this time, it was a lot harder not to chase.

Alfred glanced at them once, a bit concerned, but then turned to go check on Dick.

"What's this all about?" Bruce said. "There has to be a reason."

"When we went to check on that safehouse, there was some assassin. He was trying to kill us both. I knew he wanted to kill Richard first, to get to me. I was trying to protect us but I went too far. I threw him over a railing and—"

"Slow down. Alfred and I already heard parts of it over the police you called in. Damian, I know I said you only had one more chance. This isn't taking that chance." Bruce frowned, his brow furrowing a little. "A trained mercenary is different. You had Dick with you. You had a responsibility—"

"This all started when you kept making excuses for me," Damian said, cutting him off. "I can't handle it. I tried listening to you. I tried becoming you." Damian paused for a moment, feeling a surge of emotions rise up. He exhaled a little, trying to compose himself. "This heroism thing is never going to work for me the way that it did for you. It brings me too close to what I _used_ to be. I've tried everything. The best thing I can do is go my own way."

Damian had nothing more to say. He turned to leave.

"Wait. There is something I should say," Bruce said. Damian stopped. "Dick was right—this does concern him. I need you to at least stay to finish this case. After that, you can go where you like. I'll even pay for it, if you wish."

"I can't," Damian decided. Just thinking about going out there again, or even donning the cowl, made him more and more afraid of himself.

"The case I'm having you work on has to deal with the murder of Dick's parents. It's time-sensitive. I don't know if I could get back out in the field in time."

At that, Damian stopped.

"Murder?" he said, not sure if he heard right. "You told me they _fell_."

"They did. But the ropes were tampered with." Bruce sighed a little. Clearly, telling the truth wasn't a part of his plan. "When he first discovered who I was, he told me a story about a man threatening the owner of the circus—threatened to kill Dick's parents, specifically. Dick never told the police, he didn't want to risk anyone else getting involved. Naturally, I had to look into it for myself. To see if there was any truth to the accusation. I promised him I'd find the killer and bring him to justice."

"Did you?" Damian said.

"I _found_ him, yes. We picked up on a trail, led it to the man Tony "Fats" Zucco. I was compiling the evidence to throw him in jail. Dick had been training as Robin, insisted that he wanted to be there when it happened. But then..."

Bruce stopped, a look akin to shame crossing his features.

"But then you got hurt."

Bruce nodded slowly.

Damian sighed, frustrated. Why was he just hearing about this now?

"So what happened? Where is the killer now?"

"He died of a heart attack a year ago. In the comfort of his own home. Never set foot in a courtroom, much less Blackgate."

Damian shifted in place. A deep pang hit his heart. He thought of Dick, lamented that he was never able to see justice attained.

"It was a difficult time. But I had discovered Zucco's employer was Carmine Falcone."

The name was familiar. "The mafia boss? It thought we ruined him years ago. We had half of his family and all of his thugs arrested."

They couldn't find evidence directly linking Falcone to his crimes though—so he walked. But that didn't stop him and Bruce from getting their message across. They visited his house and made their message clear.

"He built his territory back up, literally. He took over the grounds Haly's Circus occupied, as well as a bunch of other neighborhoods. He uses it to pass his goods. That safehouse you infiltrated was one of many. I suspect he used it to run his gambling and sex trafficking operations. He's stronger now. It's going to take time and evidence to bring him down. But I promised Dick I'd do it. And at this point, we both owe it to him."

"You should have told me from the start—"

"Would you have cared?" Bruce said, looking at him. At that, Damian stopped. Bruce shifted in place, staring down at the cowl in his hands. "The biggest reason is that I didn't want to reveal too much about my cases. I didn't want to give them up, I wanted to keep them private. And in truth, I wasn't expecting us to come this far."

Neither did Damian, if he was honest.

"If you did want to give up the cowl though…" Bruce trailed off, his brow deeply furrowed. He looked like there was more he wanted to say. Damian wasn't sure what—but he did know that this news changed things.

"I'll do the case," Damian said.

After winding down for the night, Damian set up his bed as usual and laid down. It was difficult to sleep. He had a lot of things to reconsider and think about.

Damian heard footsteps on the roof.

As much as he tried to ignore them, he was still aware of them. He heard them get closer to his room, pausing. Damian sighed a little, getting up from his bed. He went to the window, opening it with a noise. He stepped back, listening to silence. After a moment, he resigned, going back to his bed. He had just sat down when he heard a creak at his window. He glanced back, seeing that Dick had come in after all.

He stood there for a moment, one hand still on the pane. He seemed apprehensive.

"So you're really leaving then?" Dick asked quietly.

"No," Damian lied. He couldn't stand the way Dick looked relieved as he said it. "My father told me about your parents."

"Oh," Dick said softly, his shoulders slumping.

The room was silent for a moment. Damian wondered if that was the wrong thing to say.

"Can I stay here awhile?" Dick asked. Damian saw the subtle way he played with the hem of his shirt, almost anxiously. He acted casually but Damian could sense the fear of rejection.

"Yes," he said. He knew it wasn't a wise decision but he said it anyways. With some restraint, he said, "But you'll have to be gone before dusk."

Dick readily accepted that. He took a seat at the edge of Damian's futon—close enough to be in his presence, but still sitting at a distance. Dick touched it, testing it. He looked back up at Damian, his gaze curious.

"Why do you sleep on the floor?"

"I want to be close to the ground," Damian said. His mind slowly filled with memories, memories of camping in foreign territories. Sleeping in tents in the desert or on the grounds of a forest. He remembered training in temples where the futons were thinner, sleeping on hard floors with ricepaper walls and nothing but coal stoves to keep him warm in the winter. He remembered his first day back in the city, after five years of living between the wilderness and hermited villages—remembered renting that hotel room, finding the bed to be a relief, until he actually laid down on it and it kept him so awake that he eventually had to carry a blanket and pillow to the carpet.

The habit was so trained that he had carried it with him, even when he returned.

"Are you used to it?" Dick asked, as if reading his mind.

"Yes," he said, and he adjusted his pillow, laying down on his side.

Dick tucked in his knees, drawing his feet up onto the futon. He rested his chin on his knees. "I used to sleep up."

"Up?"

"The circus trailers had bunks. I was always the top bunk. I kind of miss being up high."

"Is that why you stumble around on the roof every night?"

Dick's gaze lowered. He hadn't considered it. "I think I just like the fresh air."

There had been a few times where Damian also slept high. In jungles, when the ground was stalked by animals or had poisonous plants, and he had to sleep in hammocks or tie himself to the branch of a tree.

"What was your favorite place?" Damian asked suddenly. Dick looked at him. "Of all the places you travelled and performed."

"Italy," Dick said at once. "My grandparents are from there—I mean, I never met them. They died a long time ago. But my parents and I did a European tour and when we stopped in Italy, they took me everywhere." Even in the darkness, Damian could see the light in his eyes as he talked. "Have you been to Venice? At night, you can go on these boats, and travel through the canals. It takes you through the city and you can see all of the buildings and lights. But when it reaches the end, it's so dark that you can't tell where the water ends and the sky begins."

"No, I haven't been there," Damian said, after a moment of thought. Dick turned around fully so he could face him, but it was hard to make out his face in the shadows.

"What about you?"

"I don't know," Damian said. Suddenly he was thinking of where he was going to go, after all of it was over. He wasn't sure. He thought of the places where he had been—the deserts, the tundras, the steppes, the plains, the jungles. He could go anywhere. Maybe he'd even go to Venice.

Maybe he didn't have to go anywhere at all.

He could just keep running.

Dick laid down in the space next to him, without permission. They faced each other.

"You don't usually ask me questions," Dick told him.

Damian didn't know what to say to that. He was vaguely aware of how close Dick's face was—he could just barely feel his breath against his skin. He watched Dick's hand, fixated, as it clenched and unclenched the material of the futon. Picking at it. That anxious feeling was back, the same one he expressed when he was waiting for Damian to invite him in.

Fear of rejection.

"I'm not mad at you," Dick said after a moment.

Damian's gaze lowered. He knew Dick was telling the truth.

It worried him.

"Richard, do you know why I left all of those years ago?" Damian said.

Dick's hand stopped. They locked eyes. Dick suddenly seemed conflicted. Possibly afraid. The room was silent and tense for a moment, even Dick's breathing seemed to still. But he finally nodded a little, saying it.

"You killed someone," he answered quietly.

"I didn't just kill him. I murdered him," Damian said. Dick listened quietly, gaze downcast, almost like a child who was being scolded on what he did wrong. "I found him. I tracked him down. And I murdered him. I'm not a good person, Richard. I'm not a hero. I've done terrible things."

"But—"Dick stopped himself. He seemed uncertain for a moment. There was more he wanted to say. Damian knew he had to shut off any thoughts of doubt. He kept talking.

"It'd be better if you stayed mad at me. It'd be better if you hated me, like all of the rest," Damian said. That look was back—that look of uncertainty. Damian felt a little frustrated—he wasn't sure what else to say. Wasn't sure what to do or say to Dick that would get him to forget about him without hurting him.

Damian didn't want to hurt him.

"Do you understand?" he asked. Dick reluctantly nodded.

"Yes," he said. After a moment, he added, "But you're still going to help me with my parents, right?" Damian nodded. Dick shrugged a little. "Then you can't be that bad."

"Don't think that," Damian said, bristling a little. "You'll only be disappointed."

"Maybe," Dick said. "But you can't expect failure—if you do, then there's no point in trying."

Damian tried to think of an argument, anything to prove to Dick otherwise. Anything to shut down his hopelessly naive statement. But he swallowed his words.

Dick started to scoot in closer, Damian eyeing him cautiously. Suddenly, his lips met Damian's. It was for just a brief moment, the touch so bare that it was hardly there. Still, Damian moved back, looking at him in shock.

"Have you forgotten everything I've just told you?" he said, but his voice doesn't even come out angry. It sounds like disbelief.

"I know," Dick said. But he doesn't look concerned anymore. His hand reached out, his slender fingers wrapped around the back of Damian's head. Damian stared as Dick closed in again, kissing him.

It's a little firmer this time. Damian allowed it, even closed his eyes. Felt the kiss deepen. Savored the softness pressing against his lips, over and over, until they were wet. As it went on, he felt a heat rise inside of his chest. Spreading throughout his body. He heard Dick sigh, heard the sounds of their mouths meeting, and it filled Damian with a genuine desire.

His hand ran down Dick's side, felt the soft and cool fabric of his shirt. Snuck his hand underneath the hem, just barely, so he could touch the small of his back. He was amazed by how smooth the skin was—how unmarked and unhardened.

It wasn't like before—wasn't like the last time Dick had climbed in through his window. There were no tricks, no games, just real desire. A desire to keep kissing him, to keep making him feel good.

He wanted him. Bad.

He felt a surge of lust, pulling Dick in closer. Slipping his thick tongue into his mouth to taste him better. Lust fuelled by short, hot gasps and hasty kissing and small hands fumbling at the fabric of his shirt.

And it'd be simple, really, for Damian to just turn him onto his back now. To climb on top of him and take him.

But this wasn't right.

The obvious aside, even if he were willing to ignore the ethics of having this boy—his father's ward—in his bed, Damian would be leaving. He'd be leaving very soon. He knew he was past redemption, knew that it'd be easier to slip into the skin of the monster he had already created, but he couldn't keep playing with Dick's emotions. It'd be more sparing, on multiple levels, to stop now.

So he buried the desire, pulling away.

"You should go," Damian said.

Dick didn't argue—even nodded in understanding. But he was still. Awfully still. Like there was something that had yet to be said.

"What?" Damian said, but not in a way that was demanding.

"I think I knew it was a trick," Dick said in a hushed voice, almost a whisper. Damian's brow furrowed slightly, trying to figure out what Dick was trying to tell him. "I even asked you why you were being nice to me."

Damian remembered now. The first time Dick had been in his room, and Damian had put lavender on his skin and kissed him.

"You were trying to get me to be on your side. And at the time, I knew it."

"Why didn't you leave?" Damian asked, frowning. "Why did you kiss me?"

He searched Dick's face for answers. The younger had a deep, pensive look on his face. As if he himself didn't understand.

"Because even though it was a trick, I still knew that you were lonely," Dick said, almost tentatively. "And then, after some time, I just forgot that it was a trick."

Damian stared at him, eyes widening, a heavy realization weighing on his shoulders. He looked at Dick, laying before him. He thought of their time together, the jokes and disobedience that grated on his nerves, but also the surprising amount of compassion and heart that Dick displayed every single night. How each time that Damian spoke to him, pretended to get along with him, it became easier and easier.

Because it wasn't a trick.

It had stopped being a trick a long time ago.

And the capability of affection, of emotion, that he had tried to bury so long ago still existed—and Dick had pulled it out of him, when he thought he couldn't. When he thought he had to pretend.

He wondered if he could ever show the true side of himself. Wondered if he could ever really confess that to Dick.

He kept his mouth closed.

He had a lot of things to reconsider.

* * *

In truth, he had figured out how to shut off the cameras in the Cave awhile ago. He had made it his mission to figure it out since the first day he returned.

It was the other parts that were more difficult. Luckily, his father's schedule was still consumed with his work at Wayne Enterprises and his other projects, and he spent a decent amount of time out of the house. Alfred gave him free reign of the house and Dick, if he ever suspected what Damian was doing, would never interfere.

The first step was the batmobile. Luckily, his father had trained him in all of his skills. Figuring out the inside of the batmobile and all of its bells and whistles was rather easy. The same went with the trackers. The trackers were all placed inside of the belt buckles.

Although, when Damian started to pry open Dick's belt, a moment of doubt crossed his mind. He had spent a lot of time thinking over his plan. In truth, he wasn't sure if he'd be able to carry it out. But he decided that something needed to be done, and there was no one that could do it but himself.

They started out on patrol, as usual. His father was a little more open with the case now that Damian knew the truth behind it.

It was downtown. He and Dick were on the rooftops, as usual. It was then that Bruce started to notice something was amiss.

"Batman, what's your location?" Bruce asked. It was amazing how easily the man stayed composed, in control. Damian knew, deep down, Bruce was anything but calm. He knew something was happening, he was suspecting it.

"Downtown," Damian said simply.

"Where downtown?" Bruce asked.

Dick suddenly looked up at Damian. He seemed to notice something was happening too, namely by the subtle edge to Bruce's voice.

"Do you remember our conversation before I left? The one from five years ago?" Damian asked quietly.

The other end of the line was silent. Listening. Knowing.

"When we were arguing, you told me you wanted to do it. That you wanted to kill him. But you never did, that you couldn't, because even the worst of people deserve second chances—"

"Just tell me where you are." There was a certain tone to his words. An emotion. Desperate.

"How many more chances are you going to give them?" Damian asked.

"It's not about giving them chances. It's about being better. There will _always_ be someone to take their place. Someone to carry it on. It'll go on forever. It's something we can _fight_ but never _win_. It's awful. I hate it and I know you do too. But you have to understand—"

Damian wasn't going to bother any longer—his father's words about chances and inheritance was too much to handle, even if he was the one who asked first.

"I was never taught to fail," Damian said, leaving it at that.

"Damian—"Bruce started, but Damian turned off the commlink.

Damian glanced down at Dick, who hadn't quite picked up on what was happening. He looked up at him, waiting for an answer.

"They're trying to talk to you," he said.

"Turn off your commlink," Damian told him.

There was conflict in Dick's expression. He was listening, no doubt hearing Bruce's voice in his ear, trying to decide who to listen to. He sighed a little and pressed the button on the side of his mask, turning off communications, and he looked up at Damian—waiting for the next instructions to follow.

Damian hated it.

"I need you to stay here," Damian said.

"We're supposed to stick together," Dick said, in an insistent tone that showed that he was beginning to sense that something wasn't right. "Remember?"

"I'll be back. I'll meet you on this rooftop. Don't move or I won't be able to find you."

Dick shifted in place, antsy. "But where are you going?"

"I'll be back," was all Damian could give him. The lie felt heavy.

* * *

He took out all of the security cameras. He had spent time studying the property, managing to memorize all of the alarms. He dismantled each and every one. He had taken out the last camera, attached underneath a sconce, when he heard a noise coming from the bushes.

Too large to be an animal.

He gritted his teeth to himself, a dull rage rising inside of him.

He reached through the bushes, dragging Dick out. Damian immediately glared at him.

" _Tt_. What did I tell you?" Damian said. He was so flustered and angry he didn't even know where to start. "Don't you ever listen? Go _back_."

Dick shrugged off the hand. "Of course I'm going to follow you! You're acting weird!"

Damian plucked Dick by the back of his cape and dragged him behind the pillar of the nearby gazebo. Even with all of the cameras dismantled, Damian had to be careful. There could be bodyguards watching from inside the mansion.

"This doesn't involve you. Go back to the city. You're just going to get in the way."

"You're lying," Dick said at once.

Damian sighed, frustrated. He should have predicted this.

"Why won't you ever leave me _alone_? What's it going to take? How many times am I going to have to hurt you for you to _get it_?" he hissed.

"I didn't tell them," Dick said, voice thick. Damian narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"What? Didn't tell them _what_?" Damian said, impatient. Dick shifted in place, his head hanging. He looked at his feet almost guiltily.

"My parents. The police. Anyone. I didn't say anything," he said, his words running together. His confession seemed to tumble out of him. "I heard him threaten to cut the ropes if Mr. Haly didn't give him the circus. But I didn't tell anyone. And then we were doing the show—the ropes snapped and I—I didn't tell anyone."

Damian stared at him.

"And then the police asked me about it," Dick said, his voice getting lower. "But I didn't tell them. I was afraid he'd kill Mr. Haly and everyone else."

Damian shifted in place. He should have been angry. He should have been vengeful.

He didn't.

He felt empathy.

"Maybe the police could have caught them." Dick's brow furrowed. "Maybe my parents wouldn't have—"

Damian shook his head to himself. This wasn't right.

"You didn't know," Damian said. He frowned. "You were just—"

 _A kid_.

Damian stopped, staring.

 _You made a mistake_.

Damian's throat felt dry.

Dick sniffed. At the sound, Damian paused. He bent slightly at the knees, trying to get a better glimpse at Dick's eyes behind the visors of his mask.

"...are you crying?" he had to ask.

"No," Dick said immediately, voice filled with scorn at the insinuation. Still, his face seemed to redden. He ranted, stammering, "I just—you're pissing me off!" Lower, almost forlorn, "Let's just go back. Let's go home."

"I can't go back," Damian said. It was tempting. But no matter how many times he slept and woke the next day, things never changed. He always felt out of place, like he didn't belong. He was always going to be stuck between worlds. Damian felt almost guilty by how upset Dick was. "But you have to. While you're still able to."

"It doesn't feel right unless you're there," Dick said at once. "Sure, maybe things were nicer before you came, no one argued and stuff. But I didn't fit in. No one understands like you do. And we work together, we save people—"

"There will be other people," Damian said, impatient. The pressure of his task was beginning to weigh in on him.

Dick just sniffed again and Damian frowned a little. He didn't understand how someone could be so emotional, he never encountered anything like it. But he could feel his body responding to it—he felt a tension in his shoulders, heavy, his heart beating erratically. A twisting in his chest. He wished Dick would stop but didn't know what he could do to make that happen.

One thing was certain: he had to get Dick out. He wasn't sure how, since pushing him away wasn't working, and he doubted persuasion would be effective. He'd either have to force him or trick him—and since he didn't want to hurt Dick, the only thing he could think of was leading him out of there and maybe ditching him in a safehouse.

"Come on," he said with a sigh, and Dick immediately stopped sniffling.

When they passed through the teeming gardens, Dick finally asked, "What is this place? It's not as big as the manor but…"

In one of the crosspaths, a pedestal stood. On top of it stood a ten inch statuette in marble. Dick stopped and looked at it.

"It's Diana," he said. Damian glanced at it, saw the bow and arrow and the wolf standing at the tiny goddess's heel. He wondered how Dick had managed to guess it was the Roman counterpart, when everyone would have assumed it was Artemis, until he remembered Dick's stories of Italy. "There's this story where some creep watches her taking a bath and she turns him into a deer. Then she sends her wolves to hunt him." Voice a bit quieter, he said, "I learned about it in Rome."

Damian could sense the cogs turning in Dick's head. He was brighter than Damian ever gave him credit for.

Suddenly Damian noticed a light in the corner of his gaze. He quickly grabbed Dick and ducked down, using the tall stalks of flowers as coverage. Dick didn't question it, he instantly went silent, controlling his breath as he was taught. Through the stalks, Damian could catch a glimpse of some figures exiting the mansion. While the figures wrapped around the house, leaving, one remained.

Damian narrowed his eyes, watching as the person headed in their direction. Slowly approaching. They were downwind and Damian could catch the scent of a cigar wafting in the air. Dick had been watching too, and when the man got close enough to be seen, Dick turned back and looked at Damian. Damian never turned back to lock eyes with him, gaze too focused on the one coming closer and closer. But he could imagine Dick's face—the shock, the slow realization in his eyes.

It was too late to go back.

The figure got close and stopped, finally seeing through their poor camouflage. Damian saw him reach into the inside of his jacket but Damian was quicker, easily taking the gun from him. When he resisted, Damian tossed him aside on the path.

Carmine Falcone looked at him, glaring.

"Great seeing you again, _tu pezzo di merda_."

Damian wasn't his father. Wasn't the person who Falcone thought he was—but they had still met before.

"Did you not like my present?" Falcone said. "I figured as much, when I heard about what happened to his spine."

Damian knew he meant the mercenary. It should have made him angry but he just felt cold, a strange numbness overcoming him. He pointed the gun at him.

"Batman—"Dick started at once but when Falcone's eyes shifted to look at the sidekick, Damian immediately spoke up.

"Eyes up here, Falcone."

"If you were going to kill me, you would have done it years ago."

This wasn't part of the plan.

Dick wasn't supposed to be here.

Damian turned to Dick.

The way Dick looked at him, knowing, scared him.

"Do you want me to kill him?" Damian asked him.

"You fucking cocksucker, you don't have the gall—"Falcone started.

"If you want me to kill him, I'll do it," Damian said, talking over the mafia boss, shaking the gun. Dick stared at him.

"You can't do that," Dick said, shaking his head.

"This is exactly what I can do," Damian said. He believed it. He knew he believed it. But he could feel something inside of him, something like repulsion rising up. "He'll be gone. He'll be dead. He'll never get away with another crime, he'll never make anyone suffer ever again. And it'll be on my hands, not yours."

"Is that why you killed him?" Dick said, face falling. "Because Batman wouldn't do it?"

Damian stared at him. His heart rate was a low, steady pulse.

He could still remember it.

It was never going to stop.

His father had already put so much of himself on the line, his sanity at stake. But no matter how many years they fought him, no matter how many times they threw him in Arkham, he just always came back.

Damian still remembered how easy it had been. How easily the white neck twisted in his hands. Remembered thinking that it shouldn't have been so easy—that he executed far more difficult assassinations as a child. One snap and that was it. It was over.

He wanted to be the hero. But the only way he could have done it was to cave into the demon.

It was only later that he realized it wasn't heroics at all.

It was fear.

He could take on the loneliness. The pain. The aimlessness. It was what he was raised to do. But if anything happened to _them_ —if his father had to step back on that field with one leg, if Pennyworth had to be the one to bury him, if Dick never attained his justice—

Damian could do this.

It'd be easier than twisting a neck.

Dick glanced at Falcone, who was too busy staring down the barrel to try and interpret their conversation. Finally, Dick shook his head.

"No. I don't want him dead. And you don't want him dead either," Dick said.

"You're wrong," Damian said. He did want them dead. It was in his nature. The killer, bred for the purpose of greatness and dominance. Trained and raised in temples by masters who had perfected the art of killing. He searched and searched for so long, trying to find a way to escape it.

So maybe there was no escaping it. He had tried to redeem himself, time and time again. But maybe this was just the monster he had become. Maybe it'd be better just to embrace it, to keep killing the criminals who hurt the people he cared about.

That repulsion was still there.

"They've already forgiven you."

Damian froze.

Dick looked at him with honest eyes. "The whole time you were gone, you were all they talked about. They were waiting for you."

The gun felt heavy.

"Waiting for you to come back home."

Damian turned his head toward Falcone. He should just do it anyways. Just like he had done back then, even as his father had managed to catch up in time. Even as he yelled for him not to do it. Then he felt a hand overlap his—small, gentle. Damian looked down, tracing the hand to the person. He looked at Dick, whose eyes were no longer filled with fear but trust.

"It's okay," Dick said.

Damian wanted it to be.

Damian's brow furrowed. His grip came undone. Dick took the gun from his hand.

"I'm sorry." His mouth felt dry.

"I already told you," Dick said quietly. "I'm not mad." He shrugged a little. "So let's go back home."

Damian nodded. He turned back Carmine Falcone, who seemed to relax when the gun was out of Damian's reach. It annoyed him.

"This isn't over. You will pay for your crimes," he said, growling.

"I've got a lot of angry men after me. You don't scare me," Falcone fought back.

"You can't run forever," Damian said. "Wherever you go, I'll always be right on your trail."

* * *

"What the hell were you _thinking_?" Bruce said, grabbing him by the collar with sudden force. Damian realized, almost with surprise, that it had been awhile since he had been so angry.

Damian didn't fight him off. Didn't even respond. Bruce's eyes searched his face, as if looking for his answer in Damian's expression, but nothing. He let go.

The Cave was emptied. Alfred had shuffled Dick out quickly enough when Bruce had started yelling. Bruce staggered over to the computer desk, taking a seat in the chair. He buried his face in his hand for a moment.

"If Dick hadn't been there, would you have done it?" Bruce asked, voice soft.

"I lied when I came here," Damian said.

Bruce stopped, looking at him.

"I didn't know how. But I already knew that you lost your leg," Damian said. He looked out into the distance, the memory returning to him. "I saw it. I had returned to a city. It was my first time back to civilization in nearly five years. And right there, one of the first things I saw, was your face on the television. They talked about it, how Bruce Wayne had lost his leg in a freak rock climbing accident. But I knew the truth."

Bruce didn't say anything. He just listened.

"I wasn't ready to come back. I hadn't forgiven myself for what I did. I didn't trust what I'd do with a mask on again," he confessed. He frowned a little, the guilt seeping back in. He still wasn't sure if he had forgiven himself. He continued, "But I knew you weren't going to stop. I knew one day, you'd find a way to come back, and you'd keep fighting. I knew you'd let it kill you. I couldn't accept that."

Bruce closed his eyes for a moment. Finally, quietly, he said, "You could have talked to me. You could have just told me—"

"No," Damian cut in. "Someone had to take it from you. I know. Because you also haven't forgiven yourself. You won't ever stop fighting crime."

"Throughout all of the years we've been doing this, I've wondered about the choices I've made. I've wondered how they have affected you." As Bruce spoke, his eyes became more faded, his mind going somewhere distant. Damian watched his father's face carefully, the creases near his eyes and the dark circles. "When you first came to me, you were so _angry_. For years I would look at you and I would make excuses for myself. I'd tell myself that you needed it. That you needed to fight crime because it would give you discipline, purpose, a sense of right and wrong and make you _good_. I told myself that after every mission. After every birthday. That you needed it more than kids needed baseball games and going to movie theatres. That you needed Batman more than your father. After that day—after what happened—I realized how foolish I had been. How wrong. That I let my insecurities as a parent and my own selfishness dictate how I had raised you, and how it was my actions alone that betrayed me. I wish I could take that back. Not just that day. Everything."

"I don't," Damian said. Bruce looked at him. Damian had never seen him so astounded. Damian looked elsewhere, wanting to stare at anything except his father's eyes. He looked around the Cave. His old uniforms. The batmobile. The training room. Every memory resurfaced. Every argument, every jest, everything he learned and experienced. Right there. Him, his father, Alfred.

And Dick too.

He had spent a lot of time moving. Going from home to home. Country to country. Master to master. But nothing felt as true and right as that cave.

He only regretted that it had taken him this long to truly come back.

"You have this idea in your head that you have to take on these burdens. That you have to be the one to cross the line, since no one else will. That you have to take the cowl, because you can't risk not to. It doesn't have to be that way, Damian," Bruce said. He shook his head. "You don't need an excuse or reason. Just be here. That's all I ever needed."

* * *

Damian didn't even bother trying to sleep. He waited, almost hoping.

He heard the noise.

Damian stopped, looking at his ceiling. He didn't wait for a second indication. He quickly got up and opened his window.

On the roof, he found Dick wandering. He watched him for a moment as he took a few steps further away, stopping to look at the sky. There wasn't anything to look at. While a few more stars were visible this far out from the city, Gotham's lights were still too bright. Most of the sky was black.

"Richard," he said after a moment. Dick stopped and looked at him.

"I can't sleep," he finally confessed.

"Come on," Damian said.

They ducked back into his room, Dick quietly following him. Damian pulled out his case of vials from his drawer. He sat down at the edge of his futon, motioned for Dick to do the same. He was getting ready to open the case, to give Dick the same remedy that had helped him fall asleep so long ago. But just as Damian put his hand on top of the box, Dick settled his hand over his. Stopping him.

The soft touch laid over his, smooth skin brushing against his knuckles. Damian looked at him. Dick looked back, their eyes locking.

"I don't want to fall asleep," he said.

Damian felt the hand move on top of his. Felt Dick's fingers wrap around his hand, holding it. He didn't tear away his gaze, saw the serious look in Dick's eyes. Dick was not without his insecurities but he played confidence so well. Damian leaned in, kissing Dick's forehead. He heard Dick's breath hitch, felt his fingers tighten around his hand in apprehension. Damian kissed along his face, in awe of his smooth skin. He had missed kissing it, had dreamt of kissing it again after the last time Dick was in his room—had thought of it more than he was willing to admit. His lips feathered against his temple, his cheek, the corner of his mouth.

With each movement, he felt a yearning for more. To touch more. To taste more.

Dick leaned up, greeting Damian's lips with his own, hands on Damian's shoulders to balance himself as he got on his knees so he could reach Damian a little easier. At first, it was a tentative touch, their lips brushing against one another. But Damian cradled the back of his head, fingers lacing through the ends of Dick's dark hair, pulling him in deeper.

Dick made a small noise, crushed between their closed mouths. His hands tightened their grip on Damian's shoulders, pulling gently at the fabric of his shirt. It took away some of Damian's inhibitions—he angled his head, kissed Dick a little deeper, a little rougher. His tongue pressed against Dick's mouth, and the boy pliantly allowed Damian to taste him. Damian felt the velvet tip of Dick's tongue against his, the sensation exciting him. He filled Dick's mouth with his tongue, listened to his stifled moan, felt his face warm up beneath his hand. They parted for a moment, Dick trying to catch his breath like he had forgotten to breathe. Damian turned his head and kissed him again, quickly, lips crushing against each other.

His hands ran up Dick's knees, just barely catching where his sleeping shorts met his skin, his fingers daring to caress past the hemline. Dick shuddered at the movement, his skin beginning to break out in goosebumps. Damian liked the reaction. His hands moved over the fabric to Dick's hips, where he then tugged him in, pulling him into his lap.

Dick's face pulled back, looking almost startled as he was placed on Damian's thigh, his face flushed. Their bodies were pressed closer together now, their chests touching, Dick's arms wrapped around his shoulders tightly, almost clinging. Damian pressed his lips against Dick's heatedly, hastily, like Dick could slip away at any moment. Since the last time Dick had visited his room, there hadn't been a night where Damian didn't think of doing just this—holding Dick in his arms, kissing him until he was breathless. Couldn't help but think that it was a mistake to let him leave when he should have held him tight, kissed him more, touched him more.

It was so easy, and so difficult.

Damian sighed against Dick's lips, feeling Dick's fingers slipping underneath the collar of his shirt—touching the nape of his neck. It was a simple touch against sensitive skin, and it was Dick's touch—curious and affectionate—which made Damian so eager to feel more of him.

Damian rubbed his hands up and down Dick's sides. Gently. Almost comforting as they kissed, lips moving against each other with steadily rising intensity. Dick's body reacted to every movement, shuddering and tensing and relaxing as Damian caressed him with hands and lips and tongue. Damian loved every hitched breath. Loved his warmth and gentle sighs. And Dick just seemed to wrap his arms around him tighter. Closer.

Damian tried to ignore it but it was obvious. He could feel Dick's erection rubbing against his thigh. He was aroused. And Damian would be lying if he denied that he was aroused too. Aroused from Dick, who was too affectionate. Too sweet. Dick just rubbed himself against Damian harder, almost as if trying to make his hard-on more noticeable. As if expecting Damian to take care of him.

This was getting too far. Damian pulled away from Dick's mouth, just wanting to gather his bearings, but he could still taste him. Taste Dick's kiss on his lips, remembering the soft sensation, the warmth of his mouth and tongue. When he pulled away, he saw Dick—flushed, lips wet, aroused underneath his clothes. Because of him. They locked eyes and Damian could see it—the hazy desire in Dick's eyes, a desire for something he _knew_ but didn't _understand_.

Dick probably never kissed anyone before him.

Damian wanted to be the one to show him. Wanted to suck on his sidekick's throat, chest, stomach—wanted to show him how deep his crude desire sunk, ending with him shoving himself deep inside—

But he couldn't.

This wasn't right. On multiple levels.

Damian pulled himself away and he hated it. Hated that look Dick gave him, like he was a bad guy for _stopping_.

"You should go back," Damian managed to breathe.

"I'm not leaving," Dick argued. Damian could feel Dick's hands creep up underneath his shirt, the soft hands warm against his skin. Fingers dancing on the sensitive areas of his flesh. Damian held his breath, his volition weak. Wanted to feel those hands elsewhere. On his face, between his legs, or maybe racing down the length of his back as he pushed inside of him, penetrated him, hard and fast and—

"Another time," he tried instead. He only realized the trap he had set for himself after the words had fumbled out of his mouth and it was too late to take them back. Would he be able to handle himself another time? How many times would he be able to hold himself back?

But Dick couldn't even be satisfied with that answer. Damian turned his head in time when Dick tried to kiss his mouth, but Dick just as easily settled for kissing his jawline instead. The kiss so brief and light that Damian could have imagined it. The nearly delicate hands moved from his sides down to his hips. Heat rose to Damian's skin, a spark of electricity up his spine as the fingertips threatened to move past his waistband—

Damian caught him by both wrists, stopping him. Dick looked up at him, blue eyes senseless and wise all at once.

"I wouldn't mind—"he said, almost stammering. Damian's face flushed. It was obscene for Dick to even be speaking this way, to even suggest what he was about to. It shouldn't have been turning him on.

He felt Dick shift against him. The temptation was slowly escalating, higher and higher. Damian's heart was racing fast. He was trying to control his breathing but all he wanted to do was taste Dick's tongue again.

"Are you afraid of hurting me?" Dick said, almost cautiously.

"Yes," Damian could confess. No one, not even himself, made him feel afraid like Dick made him afraid. No one made him feel so safe either.

Damian could see the love and devotion in Dick's eyes everytime he looked in his direction. Willing to forgive. And if all else failed, if everyone in the world hated him, Damian knew he could depend on Dick. There was comfort in that. But Damian didn't know what to do with that level of devotion, how to respond to it when the circumstances were so drastic. When it wasn't just Dick, but his sidekick, his father's _ward_ , in his lap.

He had given up on his morals so easily in the past.

So why was this still so damned difficult?

He buried the guilt with excuses. That he wasn't going to do much, even with Dick so ready and willing within his grasp. He wasn't. He wrapped an arm around Dick's back, steadying him. His other hand stuffed between their bodies. Even underneath the sleeping shorts, Damian could feel the dull heat against his hand.

Dick tensed at the touch, but he seemed to be anticipating it. Seemed to lean in toward the touch, readjusting his legs to feel Damian's hand better. Damian palmed his erection through his clothing. Felt the warmth, the soft fabric bunching up in his hands, the faint shape of Dick's arousal beneath his touch.

Dick's grip on Damian's sides seemed to tighten, clenching into the fabric, his breaths audible now. Shaky. Damian kept rubbing him, kissing his ear. Their cheeks touching, hot from their flushed skin. Heard the unsteady sigh, responding pleasantly to the touch.

It excited him more than it should have. Every breath, every movement, increased his want. He knew this wasn't going to be enough. Every sensation on his fingertips, his lips, made him greedy for more. He could feel the heat on his skin, the hairs on the back of his neck rising with every moan spoken in Dick's voice.

It was difficult. He was pulling himself back for once—but at the same time, he was still doings things he shouldn't. Wanting things he shouldn't. And he was too far gone to keep making excuses for himself.

A small voice kept telling him that _this_ was the line he shouldn't cross. He felt happiness and shame. And uncertain of himself, uncertain in something that he wanted so bad. It almost felt unfair how difficult it was.

Dick looked down for a moment, cutting off Damian's kisses. He wrapped his hand around Damian's wrist. Not with any sort of pressure, just hanging on, as Damian continued to palm him through his clothing. He seemed to lean toward the touch, eyes shut tight. And that little bit, that slightest suggestion of desire, was almost enough for Damian to lose control.

He still wasn't used to not having what he wanted.

He knew. He knew that there was a high chance that Dick never would have looked at him like this if he hadn't manipulated him first, if he hadn't lied to him with kisses and false support and comfort and words of needing him, and as much as he wanted to believe that Dick was here of his own volition he couldn't be certain of that because of the choices he made, and it hurt to think that he screwed that up. That alone should have been enough to pull him away but his selfishness kept him anchored in.

This wasn't going to be enough.

He started to tug Dick's shirt up—Dick pulled it off the rest of the way, the garment slipping from his fingers. Damian's mouth felt dry as he took in Dick's form, so slender and light.

Easy to pick up. Toss around. Fold underneath him as he buried himself inside—

It wasn't enough.

But he can't hurt him.

Damian saw the crook between Dick's shoulder and neck, the contour almost graceful, and wanted nothing more than to suck on the skin. Nip it. But as his gaze lowered, he found himself looking at the dark marks near Dick's ribcage. Back from when he had been kicked by that assassin. He gingerly touched against the mark, felt Dick flinch.

Damian pulled back his hand. He had gotten too curious. But Dick said, "It's not so bad. Just sensitive. It only hurts if you press really hard. I've gotten worse in trapeze practice."

Damian was still balancing between guilt and desire. The mark on Dick's skin was enough to lean him towards the former. Strong shame washed over him. Shame for not protecting Dick better. Shame for lying to him. Shame for still not wanting to stop. He already hurt him, he was only going to make the damage worse. All he was capable of doing was hurting.

Dick put a hand around the back of his neck, dragging him back down to his height, and pressed his mouth against Damian's. There was a different nature to this kiss, something almost forceful—hard and quick. _Just this once_ , Damian kept telling himself. He pulled from Dick's mouth, had to bend his back to kiss at Dick's neck, his collarbone, his chest. Took Dick's nipple into his mouth, pressed against his tongue. Heard Dick's breath catch, kept him balanced in his arms as he writhed in response.

Dick moved, more purposeful now. Hand sliding downward—Damian caught a glimpse, saw Dick's hand slip beneath his shorts. Damian watched, face heating up in response. It's not that he was surprised, of course Dick would know his body well enough to do that, but to do it in front of him—

The sounds he made began to sound more raw, evolving from hitched and careful sounds to something more passionate. More longing. He stroked himself as Damian teased his chest and Damian was so hard it hurt. Just once. Not enough.

Dick laid his head on top of Damian's. Damian could hear him, breathing hard, his breath tickling his hair. Could feel Dick's arm bumping against his as he thrusted into his fist. Felt him shift around in his lap, eagerly, as he finally tugged his waistband beneath his erection.

Upon seeing him exposed, flushed and hard, Damian's heart began to race impossibly faster. He really wanted to feel him. He resisted, the heat might be too much. Too tempting. But Dick was already back to touching himself, and even just watching it, the lewdness of it all, matched with Dick's heavy moans, was enough to push him further.

Damian felt his weak semblance of control finally unravel. He wanted to see Dick's face, wanted to see all of him. And he was so hard it hurt to ignore it any longer.

He knew.

He knew this wasn't what good people did.

But all he could focus on was what he wanted, right there in that moment.

He was never good at holding himself back. And Dick, whether it was wrong or right, accepted that. Accepted the lesser parts of him. Not in a way that he excused or condoned it—he wasn't that blind—but in a way that showed that he understood.

When no one else did, however hard they may have tried, Dick understood. Understood in a way that he knew Damian was capable of better. And somehow, that understanding and confidence in him and affection gently whittled away at Damian, in a way that he _wanted_ to be better.

This isn't what good people did.

But Dick wasn't running away.

Holding tight onto Dick, he repositioned them. He laid Dick down on the futon, climbing over him. Dick looked almost tiny laid before him, despite the length of his limbs and the hint of muscles in his form. But with the slender contour of his waist and their height difference, Damian felt almost massive in comparison.

Dick's clothing was tangled beneath his hips. Damian dared to grab at it, felt the smooth curve of Dick's thigh as he dragged the clothing down his legs. Felt his hand brush against his slender calves and skinny ankles. He could feel Dick's gaze on him, watching him undress him, and Damian almost felt this need to steel his face. To hide his desire with composure.

Damian took in the sight of Dick's body, a stirring of lust threatening to rise up. Couldn't let it get too far. But the faint glow of the moonlight on Dick's skin was enough to tempt him, and he found himself tasting, his lips brushing against Dick's stomach, careful to avoid the spread of his bruise. Kissed his hipbones. The joining between the thigh and the body. Each kiss more languid, sucking on the skin, Dick shuddering and arching up to every touch in response. So willing. So beautiful.

Can't go too far.

Damian finally sat up, pulling his shirt off. Something in Dick's gaze shifted, as if looking at him with new eyes. Studying the parts of him that he had never seen before. When Damian undresses the rest of the way, Dick's eyes changed again. He seemed almost too quiet, almost shy in a way that Damian had never seen him act.

Damian wasn't sure how to feel. He could feel his strained erection pressed up against his body. He was so hard. But it also felt awfully perverse to be exposed in front of Dick this way, especially as he caught Dick glancing down.

Damian had to lean over Dick's body to grab the case from the side of the mattress. As he did so, their bodies pressed together. Damian gritted his teeth a little, feeling the heated flesh against his erection. Dick made a soft noise in response.

This wasn't what they were used for—not quite like this, anyways. They dried too fast. But Damian wasn't sure what else to use. He opened the case, withdrawing the vial of oil. He uncapped it, smelled the gentle, sweet spices. Spilled some into his hands, stroking his erection with it.

It was the first time he touched himself all night. He gave a low groan, feeling his hand sliding around his cock. The stroking brought him pleasure, relief. Pumping into it, with his eyes fluttering shut, he could pretend. Pretend that he was fucking something. Imagine that the tightness of his hand was something more. Almost.

And there was something in the scent that awakened the desire trapped inside of him. A fragrance that filled his senses, felt rich and sultry.

Damian pressed his erection against Dick's. Saw Dick staring down, fixated, his cock twitching at the contact. Damian grabbed both of their erections, the oil guiding his hand, and they both gasped lightly in response.

Damian could feel the heat rushing through his body, his erection strained and pulsing. He rolled his hips into the stroke, felt Dick, hot and hard and pressed against him—their cocks sliding against each other, in his hand. Damian's head felt hazy. Tried to keep his pace controlled. Felt good fast. But not too fast. Can't go too fast. He heard Dick's noise beginning to pick up, lots of gentle gasps and stilted moans and sounds that were almost like _whimpers_.

Damian wanted to kiss Dick again. To make him taste his tongue, to suck on his lip. But with their cocks joined by his hand, he couldn't bend that far, so he settled for balancing his weight on his knees and stroking Dick's hair instead. He felt the softness of his locks, eyes watching his reactions as he moaned and bucked up against Damian's cock, increasing their pleasure.

Damian's hand travelled from his hair to his cheek, gently touching. Thumb tracing over Dick's soft lips. He felt Dick's kiss against his hand. Damian stared, watching intensely, as Dick grabbed the hand. Kissing the palm. Sucking on his fingertips, and Damian gritted his teeth. How badly he'd love it if he could just slip his cock past those lips. Just once. Just to feel his lips, his tongue, the warmth and wetness of the inside of his mouth.

"This isn't enough."

Damian froze. The words didn't escape from his lips. He glanced down at Dick, who was weakly rolling his hips up. Expression thick and drunk with pleasure. But there was a look in his half-lidded gaze. Something yearning.

"I want more," he said, and Damian knew what he meant. He could sense it in the way Dick's thighs were spreading impossibly further to accommodate Damian's comparatively massive frame. Could sense it in the wantonness of his voice. And it freaked Damian out—not just the precociousness of this boy, but the fact that he wanted _him_.

He felt Dick's hand wrap around his wrist, sliding up his arms. Feeling the skin. Touching the muscles. Dick's eyes fluttered, eyelashes thick, as he stroked Damian's skin. Clear, unfiltered desire in his eyes.

He wanted more.

Damian's heart beat erratically, almost anxious underneath Dick's expectations. When their eyes met, Damian could see the honesty in his eyes. The trust and love. Damian finally pulled away, backing up.

"Turn around."

He could barely breathe as Dick drew his legs in, turning over. Damian lightly repositioned him, helping him get on his hands and knees. He bit back a groan as Dick was presented to him. He was almost afraid to look, lest the temptation be too great. He still didn't want to hurt Dick, though it was so easy to want to in that moment. All he'd have to do is spread his legs a little further, maybe press his fingers inside of the heat, get him used to his size, shove himself in once he was open and slick and—

He grabbed the oil, slicking his cock. The scent wafting through the air.

He aligned their bodies. He put his hands on Dick's hips, pulling him back so their bodies met. It was hard. Hard to fight back the temptation to push inside. Dick was already bent over on his hands and knees, his hips pushed up into the air. It'd be so easy. His backside didn't quite match up with Damian's form—he was still a bit too low to the ground, bumping somewhere around Damian's upper thigh. But somehow, that only filled Damian with more fervor.

He imagined hooking his hands around Dick's thighs. Imagined pulling him up to meet his thrusts as he shoved his cock inside.

He couldn't resist running a perverse hand over his ass, feeling the soft flesh. Watching as his hand wrapped almost completely around the cheek, Dick shivering beneath him. He tried to imagine Dick taking his length, stretched around him, all the way to base until he was completely filled. But there was no way, Damian convinced himself, especially as he laid his heavy cock against Dick's backside. Not without seriously hurting Dick.

So instead he rolled his hips, rubbing his cock up against him. Running over his entrance, along the crease, without ever prodding inside. Damian's gaze fell. He could feel the heat coming off of Dick. Felt his cock trapped between the softness and warmth of Dick's body.

Damian had to bend further at the knees to properly rub against Dick—but the sensation was worth it. He felt a little more confident with each roll of his hips. He wasn't inside—their bodies were not meeting fully, completely. But the sensation, the act of moving behind Dick, was enough for Damian to pretend.

He placed his elbow on the futon, to steady himself. His weight came down on Dick, pressing their bodies closer to the mattress. Closer together. So close he could smell Dick's own scent. Close enough to feel Dick's back pressed against his chest and waist, the warmth of his body. Damian felt shaky now, low sounds escaping the back of his throat every time he pushed his slick cock against Dick's body. Heard the sounds Dick was making, each inhale and exhale as Damian's weight moved on top of him, until it was all Damian could hear. All that he cared about.

He felt Dick move underneath him. Dick placed his head down in the crook of Damian's arm, consequentially arching his hips up higher. Bumping back up against Damian's erection in a way that made Damian curse under his breath. Felt Dick hook his small arms around Damian's, the same one he used to balance himself as he thrusted up against him, pretending to fuck him.

Damian could feel it. Feel Dick wrapped around his limb, feeble hands gripping into his bicep. Holding on.

Holding onto him.

He groaned, rutting against him. A little quicker now. A little harder. His cock pressed against his warm body. He could feel the heat coming off of Dick, pretended what it felt like inside. Pretended that there was tight heat wrapped around his cock. Imagined the sounds that'd escape his lips as Damian fed him his cock.

But he couldn't. He'd just hurt him. He didn't want to hurt him. Didn't want to scare him away.

Dick was still holding on.

Damian slipped his free hand between Dick's legs, grabbing his still erect cock. Wrapped his hand around it, encasing it. Damian's hands were still soft from the oil and Dick moaned between closed lips in response to the action. Every time Damian rutted up against Dick, he pushed him into his hand.

Their voices began to align. He felt Dick's grip on his arm tighten. Felt lips brush against the skin, kissing his arm. There's something about that, something about the level of devotion and affection that made Damian's heart skip a beat. It made Damian believe Dick wanted him, needed him, when he knew it was the other way around.

Damian would have kissed him again if the boy wasn't already tucked underneath him. Damian's form completely covered him, his body a cage. He could only express his feelings, his affections, through the movements of their hips and the sounds that escaped past his lips. And Dick responded to it all, pushing back against him, rocking between Damian's hand and the cock pressed hot against his backside. Damian's cock was slick with oil, rubbing off against Dick. Dick's skin was soft, the smell alluring. Damian rutted against him, faster now. The actions, the sound of flesh meeting flesh, the hitched breathing and steadily rising voices, needed to be silenced. Damian had to hush Dick, who couldn't keep his voice down as Damian stroked him. They couldn't be caught, couldn't let anyone else find out. No one would understand. So Dick held back, but even his stifled moans and whines still turned Damian on.

He could feel Dick beginning to leak precum onto his hands. Dick's entire body felt flushed against Damian's skin. He was panting softly, his grip on Damian unrelinquishing, his legs trembling. He stayed in position, perhaps dutifully but Damian knew it was out of want. He stayed on his hands and knees but enjoyed it, seemed to moan almost longingly every time Damian pressed past his entrance. Dark desire began to drown out Damian's senses. He wanted Dick to come. Wanted him to finish for him, by his hand. He stroked him a bit faster, hearing the keening sounds drowned out in the crook of his arm.

"It feels hot," Dick finally said, voice breathy, struggling to maintain at a whisper. Damian just barely heard him—too lost in his desire and actions to pick up on the soft voice—but when he did, he felt a rush go through him. Desire racing. "I'm—"

"Come," Damian said, and could hear the husky desire in his voice. He wanted it. Wanted to feel Dick tremble underneath him.

"With you," Dick murmured.

"What?" Damian asked, not sure if he heard everything. Dick's voice was muffled, and lost between moans besides, his lips brushing against Damian's skin as he spoke. Damian kept moving, felt Dick's swollen cock pulsing in his hand as he stroked him. Bodies pressed so close he could feel every tremble that travelled through Dick's body. He was on the brink, Damian could sense it, and just the idea of it turned him on so bad.

"I want to finish with you," Dick finally said, with effort.

Damian's gaze lowered, felt something swell inside of his chest. He looked down at the hands on his arm, all calluses and blunt nails, small but damaged, clamped down on him. Dick, holding himself back, just because he wanted to do everything together with Damian—Damian understood, and he also didn't.

"So perfect," Damian whispered, the words slipping off his tongue without any thought.

He pulled off, gently turning Dick onto his side. Off of his knees. Damian reached down, grabbing his own cock—the tight heat of his hand making his eyelids lower. He saw Dick twisting to look up at him, trying to understand the change in position. Damian quickly took the opportunity to kiss him, their tongues dancing, swallowing Dick's delicious moans before finally pulling away.

Holding himself, Damian aligned the head of his cock, wedging forward, the softness of Dick's inner thighs hugging around him as he pushed through. Then he felt heat. He was pressed against the underside of Dick's erection.

Dick made a soft noise, a moan behind crushed lips. The sound filled the still air. Damian should have been terrified but he felt his breath hitch, heat rushing through his body. Somehow Dick's reaction, just knowing that it felt good for him too, fuelled Damian's desire. Made his breath shake.

Dick's hand blindly grasped at his body, trying to feel him. Hold onto him. Damian thrusted forward, his cock brushing the underside of Dick's. The position allowed Damian more control, allowed him piston in and out. He ran his hands over Dick's body, rubbing circles along the surface of his heated skin. He could look into his face, see the flush, his mussed hair, blue eyes peering up at him beneath dark strands, his lips slightly parted as he gasped in response to every contact between their erections.

Damian kept one hand placed on top of Dick's thighs, feeling the smooth skin, keeping himself steady. Dick's thighs kept him tucked inside, smooth and warm and tight. Even more than the rutting, Damian believed it. Believed he was making love to Dick. Imagined being inside of him instead of the area he managed to situate his cock.

A hand brushed over Dick's chest, pressing against the peak there. Teasing and pulling it. And Dick's expression slipped away all at once, turning his head to bite into the sheets. He finally trembled, his hand reaching down to grab his cock and properly stroke it.

He made a long, almost mournful sound, stifled by the sheet, as he climaxed in his hand. Damian could barely breathe, pushing in faster. Bucking up between Dick's quivering legs as he watched him jerk and tremble, unloading his seed onto his hands. Dirtying his fingers, the sheets.

Dick's entire body relaxed but he didn't leave. He looked up at Damian, his hand still filthy. Damian could see the lingering desire in his eyes. He wanted Damian to finish too.

Damian groaned softly, unable to tear his gaze away. Dick's eyes were pulling him in, tearing him apart, making him undone. Damian wasn't sure if he'd ever understand, wasn't sure how this boy could make him feel so damned weak.

He doesn't understand it but he doesn't fight it. Doesn't run away.

Eyes locked, the heat rushed down to his groin, body trembling as Damian finally finished. He felt himself release between Dick's thighs. Felt his ejaculate, hot and thick, guide him as he thrusted eratically, riding out his orgasm. The tremors and heat ran through his body until his entire being felt weak. He removed himself, grabbing the sheet to clean himself. Saw the mess on Dick, dripping down his thighs and wrists, and helped clean that too.

Dick didn't say anything, just reached out. Touched Damian's side, fingers just barely grazing against him. Tenderly. Damian could read the look in Dick's eyes as he looked up at him. The silent request. Damian obliged, leaned down and kissed his face. Kissed his cheek, behind his ear, his hairline. Kissed him in short, brief contact between his lips and Dick's skin, light and swift but still with fondness, and Dick just touched his skin all the while, hands moving over what he could touch. Each touch gentle, soothing. Calming Damian's spirit.

Damian was vaguely aware of the exhaustion in his body. He laid himself down on the futon next to Dick. He was vaguely aware of the time, wondering what hour they were approaching.

As if reading Damian's mind, Dick asked, "Can I stay here a little longer?"

Damian doesn't know how to say no.

They lay for awhile, unsure of the time. On the bedside table, fantastical ivory figures stood in permanence. On the dresser, amulets hung still. They talk in gentle whispers but in time, the words fade into comforting silences. Everything unmoving. Damian glanced around his room, taking it all in.

Damian didn't understand.

Didn't understand the invisible link that kept him tethered to this place. Didn't understand what bound him to what was so capable of hurting him. Didn't understand why it invited him in even though he could hurt it back.

When it all just seemed easier to run, some force just kept bringing him back.

Because no matter where he ran, whether it was from his mother or his father, he always ended back up in that house.

Maybe he had been looking for forgiveness. But if that was the case, then he was finished. He could leave now.

He felt a pull at the sheets. He glanced down at Dick, whose hand was tangling in the sheets that covered them. He saw the shut eyes, heard his light breathing, and realized he was asleep.

His first reaction was to wake him up. To make sure he returned to the boundaries of his own room. He placed his hand on his shoulder, ready to wake him, but hesitated.

Dick's body was still, save for his hand which twisted a little tighter in the sheets. Hanging on.

Damian waited. It was risky, but he decided just a little while would be okay.

Just a moment longer.

* * *

Damian stood in the Cave, his gaze resting on a display case. He found himself touching, his fingers just barely pressed against the glass.

"You could go back," Bruce said, who had been watching him from a distance. Damian's eyes tore away from his old uniform to look at his father. "It wouldn't be too difficult to make you another uniform. Maybe we could even come up with a moniker for you, this time."

"Gotham needs Batman," Damian said simply. He raised a brow. "Although, you would probably want that, wouldn't you? I've seen your blueprints and I've caught you exercising against Pennyworth's orders. You haven't given up yet."

"I wasn't going to," Bruce admitted. "Things were rocky for awhile. I needed to be prepared if I had to take the cowl again." He looked Damian in the eye. There was a semblance of trust there that Damian hadn't seen in a long time. Something reminiscent of far away, almost forgotten days. "That's not going to change—I'll always be prepared, if you change your mind. But for now, for however long you're willing, the cowl is yours."

Suddenly there was a loud clanging sound from the other side of the Cave.

"Whoops."

A heavy, exasperated sigh. "Master Dick, for the last time, do not juggle my medical instruments. It's incredibly dangerous not to mention silly and _pointless_."

"I think for now, the dynamic works better as Batman and Robin," Damian said, turning towards his father, but Bruce was too distracted in the scene, wondering if he should intercede.

"It's going to be difficult being stuck in here, watching from the sidelines," Bruce said, rubbing his forehead.

"Are you ready?" Damian called out. At the sound of his voice, Dick finally stopped terrorizing Pennyworth and hurried to catch up with Damian.

"Hey, you never finished telling me that story," Dick said, once they were inside of the batmobile. Damian started up the vehicle, trying to recall what Dick was speaking of.

"Which one?" Damian said, as they took off through the tunnel.

"The one about the lake with the giant lilypads," Dick said, but they were cut off by forwarded police signals. Once they began to move throughout the city, they followed the coordinates toward the emergency situation. When Dick had the chance, he started listing off other details to ignite something in Damian's memory. "You know. You said you had to take an old boat and there were flowers sticking out of the water—"

"Are you talking about a lotus?" Damian said, a little confused. He couldn't recall. "There was never a story to it. You just asked me what the temple looked like." They were getting close. "Grapple over on that post."

They easily swung to the ground. They raced around the corner, closing in on their target.

"I guess I just want to hear about it again. It just sounds nice," Dick said.

" _Tt_. Sure, if you like being yelled at by crotchety old men in the meantime."

"That's nothing new," Dick said, and Damian could hear the smile in his voice.

They approached their targeted building. Damian easily kicked the door in. They hurried their way up the steps.

"What did you miss most about Gotham when you were gone?"

"Who says I missed it?"

"Oh, come on."

They burst through the door. Damian was responsible for taking out all of the armed guards. Dick helped, easily tripping a few of them. One guy runs toward Dick but Dick easily outmaneuvers him, spinning him around and flipping him off balance—Damian feels impressed. Once they were surrounded by fallen bad guys, tying them up, Damian found himself shrugging.

"This, I suppose."

When they were done removing the threat, they hurried over to untie the victims. The mother and daughter who had been taken hostage immediately embraced. Meanwhile, Damian moved a bit away, reporting to the Cave and calling for GCPD.

Damian felt a small nudge. Damian looked down at Dick, confused by the small smile he was flashing at him, until he heard a stammer behind him. Damian looked over his shoulder, the mother approaching him. She looked relieved.

"Thank you for saving us," she said.

Damian looked at her, slowly nodding.

He'd never admit it.

But he had missed that too.


End file.
